LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

Mr.    H.    H.    Kil  iani 


LIBKAKY 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


THE   COMEDIE    HUMAINE 


MME.     DE     LANGEAIS     RANG     THE     BELL. 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


THE  THIRTEEN 

(HISTOIRE  DES  TREIZE) 


AND   OTHER   STORIES 


TRANSLATED   BY 


ELLEN   MARRIAGE 


WTTH   A   PREFACE  BY 


GEORGE   SAINTSBURY 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  GEBBIE  PUBLISHING  Co.,  Ltd. 
1899 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE  ...........  « 

THE    THIRTEEN— 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE     ........  ' 

I.  FERRACUS         ......... 

II.  THE  DUCHESSE  DE  LANGEAIS         .....  *39 

MAITRE  CORNELIUS     ........  298 

GAMBARA           ..........  3^7 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

MMK.    I)K    l.ANGKAIS    RANG   THK    HF.I.I.    (]'.    235)  .  . 

rxc.c 
"  YOl'     AKK     MISTAKEN,     MADKMUISKI.I.K,     MY      \\IKK     OU'I.I)     NOT 

POSSllU.Y "  ... 7S 

A    GIKI.'S    BODY    STRANDKH   THAT    MORNING    ON    THK    HANK       .  .       132 

"SOUND    YOl  KSKLI   ;    IK    YOU    HAVK    NOT    COI'RACK    KNOKGH,    IIKRK 

IS    MY    liAGGKR" l8S 

HI.     vrooll     I'NIU  -K      THK     WAI.  1.     TO      IIKAR      THK      MI'SIC     OK     THK 

ORGAN 2Q> 

I>> J7<.«  tv  H'.  I'ju.htr. 


PREFACE. 

IN  its  original  form  the  "  Histoire  des  Treize  "  consists — 
or,  rather,  it  was  originally  built  up — of  three  stories:  "  Fer- 
ragus"  or  the  "  Rue  Soly,"  "La  Duchesse  de  Langeais  "  or 
"  Ne  touchez-pas  a  la  hache,"  and  "  La  Filleaux  Yeuxd'Or." 
The  last,  in  some  respects  one  of  Balzac's  most  brilliant 
effects,  does  not  appear  here,  as  it  contains  things  that  are 
inconvenient.  It  may  be  noted  that  he  had  at  one  time  the 
audacity  to  think  of  calling  it  "  La  Femme  aux  Yeux 
Rouges." 

To  tell  the  truth,  there  is  more  power  than  taste  throughout 
the  "Histoire  des  Treize,"  and  perhaps  not  very  much  less 
unreality  than  power.  Balzac  is  very  much  better  than  Eugene 
Sue,  though  Eugene  Sue  also  is  better  than  it  is  the  fashion  to 
think  him  just  now.  But  he  is  here,  to  a  certain  extent,  com- 
peting with  Sue  on  the  latter's  own  ground.  The  notion  of 
the  "  Devorants  " — of  a  secret  society  of  men  devoted  to  each 
other's  interests,  entirely  free  from  any  moral  or  legal  scruple, 
possessed  of  considerable  means  in  wealth,  ability,  and  posi- 
tion, all  working  together,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  for  good 
ends  or  bad — is,  no  doubt,  rather  seducing  to  the  imagination 
at  all  times  ;  and  it  so  happened  that  it  was  particularly  se- 
ducing to  the  imagination  of  that  time.  And  its  example  has 
been  powerful  since;  it  gave  us  Mr.  Stevenson's  "New  Arabian 
Nights"  only,  as  it  were,  the  other  day. 

But  there  is  something  a  little  schoolboyish  in  it ;  and  I  do 
not  know  that  Balzac  has  succeeded  entirely  in  eliminating 
this  something.  The  pathos  of  the  death,  under  persecution, 
of  the  innocent  Clemence  does  not  entirely  make  up  for  the 
unreasonableness  of  the  whole  situation.  Nobody  can  say 
that  the  abominable  misconduct  of  Maulincour — who  is  a 
hopeless  "cad" — is  too  much  punished,  though  an  English- 

(ixj 


x  PREFACE. 

man  may  think  that  Dr.  Johnson's  receipt  of  three  or  four 
footmen  with  cudgels,  applied  repeatedly  and  unsparingly, 
would  have  been  better  than  elaborately  prepared  accidents 
and  duels,  which  were  too  honorable  for  a  Peeping  Tom  of 
this  kind  ;  and  poisonings,  which  reduced  the  avengers  to  the 
level  of  their  victim.  But  the  imbroglio  is  of  itself  stupid  ; 
these  fathers  who  cannot  be  made  known  to  husbands  are  mere 
stage  properties,  and  should  never  be  fetched  out  of  the  the- 
atrical lumber-room  by  literature. 

"  La  Duchessede  Langeais  "  is,  I  think,  a  better  story,  with 
more  romantic  attraction,  free  from  the  objections  just  made 
to  "Ferragus,"  and  furnished  with  a  powerful,  if  slightly  the- 
atrical catastrophe.  It  is  as  good  as  anything  that  its  author 
has  done  of  the  kind,  subject  to  those  general  considerations 
of  probability  and  otherwise  which  have  been  already  hinted 
at.  For  those  who  are  not  troubled  by  any  such  critical 
reflections,  both,  no  doubt,  will  be  highly  satisfactory.  And, 
indeed,  I  must  confess  that  I  should  not  think  much  of  any 
boy  who,  beginning  Balzac  with  the  ''Histoire  des  Treize," 
failed  to  go  rather  mad  over  it.  I  know  there  was  a  time  when 
I  used  to  like  it  best  of  all,  and  thought  not  merely  "  Eugenie 
Grandet,"  but  "  Le  Pere  Goriot  "  (though  not  the  "  Peau  de 
Chagrin"),  dull  in  comparison.  Some  attention,  however, 
must  be  paid  to  two  remarkable  characters,  on  whom  it  is  quite 
clear  that  Balzac  expended  a  great  deal  of  pains,  and  one  of 
whom  he  seems  to  have  "caressed,"  as  the  French  say,  with  a 
curious  admixture  of  dislike  and  admiration. 

The  first,  Bourignard  or  Ferragus,  is,  of  course,  another, 
though  a  somewhat  minor  example — Collin  or  Vautrin  being 
the  chief — of  that  strange  tendency  to  take  intense  interest 
in  criminals,  which  seems  to  be  a  pretty  constant  eccentricity 
of  many  human  minds,  and  which  laid  an  extraordinary 
grasp  on  the  great  French  writers  of  Balzac's  time.  I  must 
confess,  though  it  may  sink  me  very  low  in  some  eyes,  that 
I  have  never  been  able  fully  to  appreciate  the  attractions 


PREFACE.  xi 

of  crime  and  criminals,  fictitious  or  real.  Certain  pleasant 
and  profitable  things,  no  doubt,  retain  their  pleasure  and 
their  profit,  to  some  extent,  when  they  are  done  in  the  manner 
which  is  technically  called  criminal  ;  but  they  seem  to  me  to 
acquire  no  additional  interest  by  being  so.  As  the  criminal 
of  fact  is,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  an  exceedingly  com- 
monplace and  dull  person,  the  criminal  of  fiction  seems  to  me 
only,  or  usually,  to  escape  these  curses  by  being  absolutely 
improbable  and  unreal.  But  I  know  this  is  a  terrible  heresy. 
Henri  de  Marsay  is  a  much  more  ambitious  and  a  much  more 
interesting  figure.  In  him  are  combined  the  attractions  of 
criminality,  beauty,  brains,  success,  and,  last  of  all,  dandyism. 
It  is  a  well-known  and  delightful  fact  that  the  most  Anglo- 
phobe  Frenchman — and  Balzac  might  fairly  be  classed  amongst 
them — have  always  regarded  the  English  dandy  with  half- 
jealous,  half-awful  admiration.  Indeed,  our  novelist,  it  will 
be  seen,  found  it  necessary  to  give  Marsay  English  blood. 
But  there  is  a  tradition  that  this  young  Don  Juan — not  such  a 
good  fellow  as  Byron's,  nor  such  a  grand  seigneur  as  Moliere's 
—was  partly  intended  to  represent  Charles  de  Remusat,  who 
is  best  known  to  this  generation  by  very  sober  and  serious 
philosophical  works,  and  by  his  part  in  his  mother's  corre- 
spondence. I  do  not  know  that  there  ever  were  any  imputa- 
tions on  M.  de  Remusat's  morals ;  but  in  memoirs  of  the 
time  he  is,  I  think,  accused  of  a  certain  selfishness  and  hauteur, 
and  he  certainly  made  his  way.  partly  by  journalism,  partly 
by  society,  to  power  very  much  as  Marsay  did.  But  Marsay 
would  certainly  not  have  written  "Abelard  "  and  the  rest,  or 
have  returned  to  Ministerial  rank  in  our  time.  Marsay,  in 
fact,  more  fortunate  than  Rubempre,  and  of  a  higher  stamp  and 
flight  than  Rastignac,  makes  with  them  Balzac's  trinity  of 
sketches  of  the  kind  of  personage  whose  part,  in  his  day  and 
since,  every  young  Frenchman  has  aspired  to  play,  and  some 
have  played.  It  cannot  be  said  that  '•'  a  moral  man  is  Marsay  : '' 
it  cannot  be  said  that  he  has  the  element  of  good-nature  which 


xii  PREFACE. 

redeems  Rastignac.  But  he  bears  a  blame  and  a  burden  for 
which  we  Britons  are  responsible  in  part — the  Byronic  ideal 
of  the  guilty  hero  coming  to  cross  and  blacken  the  old  French 
model  of  unscrupulous  good  humor.  It  is  not  a  very  pretty 
mixture  or  a  very  worthy  ideal ;  but  I  am  not  so  lure  that  it  is 
not  still  a  pretty  common  one. 

The  association  of  the  three  stories  forming  the  "  Histoire 
des  Treize "  is,  in  book  form,  original,  inasmuch  as  they 
filled  three  out  of  the  four  volumes  of  "  Etudes  des  Mceurs" 
published  in  1834-35,  and  themselves  forming  part  of  the  first 
collection  of  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Parisienne.  But  "  Ferragus  " 
had  appeared  in  parts  (with  titles  to  each)  in  the  "Revue  de 
Paris"  for  March  and  April  1833,  and  part  of  "La  Duchesse 
de  Langeais  "  in  the  "  Echo  de  la  Jeune  France  "  almost  con- 
temporaneously. There  were  divisions  in  this  also.  "  Ferra- 
gus  "  and  "La  Duchesse"  also  appeared  without  "La  Fille 
aux  Yeux  d'Or  "  in  1839,  published  in  one  volume  by  Char- 
pentier,  before  their  absorption  at  the  usual  time  in  the 
Comedie.  G.  S. 


THE  THIRTEEN. 

AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 

IN  the  Paris  of  the  Empire  there  were  banded  together 
Thirteen  men  equally  impressed  with  the  same  thought, 
equally  endowed  with  energy  enough  to  keep  them  true  to 
it,  while  among  themselves  they  were  loyal  to  keep  faith  even 
when  their  interests  chanced  to  clash.  They  were  sufficiently 
strong  to  set  themselves  above  all  laws  ;  bold  enough  to  shrink 
from  no  enterprise ;  and  so  fortunate  as  to  succeed  in  nearly 
everything  that  they  undertook.  So  profoundly  politic  were 
they  that  they  could  dissemble  the  tie  which  bound  them 
together.  They  ran  the  greatest  risks  and  kept  their  failures 
to  themselves.  Fear  never  entered  into  their  calculations ; 
not  one  of  them  had  trembled  before  princes,  before  the  ex- 
ecutioner's axe,  before  innocence.  They  had  taken  each  other 
as  they  were,  regardless  of  social  prejudices.  Criminals  they 
doubtless  were,  yet  none  the  less  were  they  all  remarkable  for 
some  one  of  the  virtues  which  go  to  the  making  of  great  men, 
and  their  numbers  were  filled  up  only  from  among  picked  re- 
cruits. Finally,  that  nothing  should  be  lacking  to  complete 
the  dark,  mysterious  romance  of  their  history,  nobody  to  this 
day  knows  whom  they  were.  The  Thirteen  once  realized  all 
the  wildest  ideas  conjured  up  by  tales  of  the  occult  powers  of 
a  Manfred,  a  Faust,  or  a  Melmoth  ;  and  to-day  the  band  is 
broken  up  or,  at  any  rate,  dispersed.  Its  members  have 
quietly  returned  beneath  the  yoke  of  the  civil  law  ;  much  as 
Morgan,  the  Achilles  of  piracy,  gave  up  buccaneering  to  be  a 
peaceable  planter;  and,  untroubled  by  qualms  of  conscience, 
sat  himself  down  by  the  fireside  to  dispose  of  blood-stained 
booty  acquired  by  the  red  light  of  blazing  towns  and  slaugh- 
ter. 

(1) 


2  THE    THIRTEEN, 

After  Napoleon's  death,  the  band  was  dissolved  by  a  chance 
event  which  the  author  is  bound  for  the  present  to  pass  over 
in  silence,  and  its  mysterious  existence,  as  curious,  it  may  be, 
as  the  darkest  novel  by  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  came  to  an  end. 

It  was  only  lately  that  the  present  writer,  detecting,  as  he 
fancied,  a  faint  desire  for  celebrity  in  one  of  the  anonymous 
heroes  to  whom  the  whole  band  once  owed  an  occult  alle- 
giance, received  the  somewhat  singular  permission  to  make 
public  certain  of  the  adventures  which  befell  that  band,  pro- 
vided that,  while  telling  the  story  in  his  own  fashion,  he  ob- 
served certain  limits. 

The  aforesaid  leader  was  still  an  apparently  young  man 
with  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes,  and  a  soft,  thin  voice  which 
might  seem  to  indicate  a  feminine  temperament.  His  face 
was  pale,  his  ways  mysterious.  He  chatted  pleasantly,  and 
told  me  that  he  was  only  just  turned  of  forty.  He  might 
have  belonged  to  the  very  upper  class.  The  name  which  he 
gave  was  probably  assumed,  and  no  one  answering  to  his 
description  was  known  in  society.  Who  is  he,  do  you  ask  ? 
No  one  knows. 

Perhaps  when  he  made  his  extraordinary  disclosures  to  the 
present  writer,  he  wished  to  see  them  in  some  sort  reproduced  ; 
to  enjoy  the  effect  of  the  sensation  on  the  multitude ;  to  feel 
as  Macpherson  might  have  felt  when  the  name  of  Ossian,  his 
creation,  passed  into  all  languages.  And,  in  truth,  that  Scot- 
tish advocate  knew  one  of  the  keenest,  or,  at  any  rate,  one  of 
the  rarest  sensations  in  human  experience.  What  was  this  but 
the  incognito  of  genius?  To  write  an  "Itinerary  from  Paris 
to  Jerusalem  "  is  to  take  one's  share  in  the  glory  of  a  century, 
but  to  give  a  Homer  to  one's  country — this  surely  is  a  usurpa- 
tion of  the  rights  of  God. 

The  writer  is  too  well  acquainted  with  the  laws  of  narration 
to  be  unaware  of  the  nature  of  the  pledge  given  by  this  brief 
preface ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  knows  enough  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  Thirteen  to  feel  confident  that  he  will  not  disap- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  3 

point  any  expectations  raised  by  the  programme.  Tragedies 
dripping  with  gore,  comedies  piled  up  with  horrors,  tales  of 
heads  taken  off  in  secret  have  been  confided  to  him.  If  any 
reader  has  not  had  enough  of  the  ghastly  tales  served  up  to 
the  public  for  some  time  past,  he  has  only  to  express  his  wish ; 
the  author  is  in  a  position  to  reveal  cold-blooded  atrocities 
and  family  secrets  of  a  gloomy  and  astonishing  nature.  But 
in  preference  he  has  chosen  those  pleasanter  stories  in  which 
stormy  passions  are  succeeded  by  purer  scenes,  where  the 
beauty  and  goodness  of  woman  shine  out  the  brighter  for  the 
darkness.  And,  to  the  honor  of  the  Thirteen,  such  episodes 
as  these  are  not  wanting.  Some  day,  perhaps,  it  may  be 
thought  worth  while  to  give  their  whole  history  to  the  world  ; 
in  which  case  it  might  form  a  pendant  to  the  history  of  the 
buccaneers — that  race  apart  so  curiously  energetic,  so  attrac- 
tive in  spite  of  their  crimes. 

When  a  writer  has  a  true  story  to  tell,  he  should  scorn  to 
turn  it  into  a  sort  of  puzzle-toy,  after  the  manner  of  those 
novelists  who  take  their  reader  for  a  walk  through  one  cavern 
after  another  to  show  him  a  dried-up  corpse  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  volume,  and  inform  him,  by  way  of  conclusion,  that  he 
has  been  frightened  all  along  by  a  door  hidden  somewhere  or 
other  behind  some  tapestry ;  or  a  dead  body,  left  by  inadvert- 
ence, under  the  floor.  So  the  present  chronicler,  in  spite  of 
his  objection  to  prefaces,  felt  bound  to  introduce  his  fragment 
by  a  few  remarks. 

FERRAGUS,  the  first  episode,  is  connected  by  invisible  links 
with  the  history  of  the  Thirteen,  for  the  power  which  they 
acquired  in  a  natural  manner  provides  the  apparently  super- 
natural machinery. 

Again,  although  a  certain  literary  coquetry  may  be  permis- 
sible to  retailers  of  the  marvelous,  the  sober  chronicler  is 
bound  to  forego  such  advantage  as  he  may  reap  from  an  odd- 
sounding  name,  on  which  many  ephemeral  successes  are 
founded  in  these  days.  Wherefore  the  present  writer  gives 


4  THE    THIRTEEN. 

the  following  succinct  statement  of  the  reasons  which  induced 
him  to  adopt  the  unlikely  sounding  title  and  sub-title. 

In  accordance  with  old-established  custom,  FERRAGUS  is  a 
name  taken  by  the  head  of  a  guild  of  Devorants,  or  journey- 
men. Every  chief  on  the  day  of  his  election  chooses  a  pseu- 
donym and  continues  a  dynasty  of  Devorants  precisely  as  a 
pope  changes  his  name  on  his  accession  to  the  triple  tiara ; 
and  as  the  church  has  its  Clement  XIV.,  Gregory  XII.,  Julius 
II.,  or  Alexander  VI.,  so  the  workmen  have  their  "Trempe- 
la-Soupe  IX.,  Ferragus  XXII.,  Tutanus  XIII.,  or  Masche-Fer 
IV."  Who  are  the  Devorants,  do  you  ask? 

The  Devorants  are  one  among  many  tribes  of  companions 
whose  origin  can  be  traced  to  a  great  mystical  association 
formed  among  the  workmen  of  Christendom  for  the  rebuilding 
of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  Companionism,  to  coin  a  word, 
is  still  a  popular  institution  in  France.  Its  traditions  still 
exert  a  power  over  little-enlightened  minds,  over  men  so  un- 
educated that  they  have  not  learned  to  break  their  oaths ; 
and  the  various  organizations  might  be  turned  to  formidable 
account  even  yet  if  any  rough-hewn  man  of  genius  arose  to 
make  use  of  them,  for  his  instruments  would  be,  for  the  most 
part,  almost  blind. 

Wherever  journeymen  travel,  they  find  a.  hostel  for  com- 
panions which  has  been  in  existence  in  the  town  from  time 
immemorial.  The  obade,  as  they  call  it,  is  a  kind  of  lodge 
with  a  "mother  "  in  charge,  an  old.  half-gypsy  wife  who  has 
nothing  to  lose.  She  hears  all  that  goes  on  in  the  country- 
side ;  and,  either  from  fear  or  from  long  habit,  is  devoted  to 
the  interests  of  the  tribe  boarded  and  lodged  by  her.  And  as 
a  result,  this  shifting  population,  subject  as  it  is  to  an  unalter- 
able law  of  custom,  has  eyes  in  every  place,  and  will  carry  put 
an  order  anywhere  without  asking  questions  ;  for  the  oldest 
journeyman  is  still  at  an  age  when  a  man  has  some  beliefs  left. 
What  is  more,  the  whole  fraternity  professes  doctrines  which, 
if  unfolded  never  so  little-  are  both  true  enough  and  mysterious 


THE    THIRTEEN.  5 

enough  to  electrify  all  the  adepts  with  patriotism  ;  and  the 
brothers  of  the  league  are  so  attached  to  their  rules  that  there 
have  been  bloody  battles  between  different  fraternities  on  a 
question  of  principle.  Fortunately,  however,  for  peace  and 
public  order,  if  a  Devorant  is  ambitious,  he  takes  to  building 
houses,  makes  a  fortune,  and  leaves  the  guild. 

A  great  many  curious  things  might  be  told  of  their  rivals, 
the  Compagnons  du  Devoir  (of  the  duty),  of  all  the  different 
sects  of  workmen,  their  manners  and  customs  and  brother- 
hoods, and  of  the  resemblances  between  them  and  the  Free- 
masons ;  but  here,  these  particulars  would  be  out  of  place. 
The  author  will  merely  add,  that  before  the  Revolution  a 
Trempe-la-Soupe  had  been  known  in  the  King's  service,  which 
is  to  say,  that  he  had  the  tenure  of  a  place  in  his  majesty's 
galleys  for  one  hundred  and  one  years  ;  but  even  thence  he 
ruled  his  guild,  and  was  religiously  consulted  on  all  matters, 
and  if  he  escaped  from  the  hulks  he  met  with  help,  succor, 
and  respect  wherever  he  went.  To  have  a  chief  in  the  hulks 
is  one  of  those  misfortunes  for  which  Providence  is  responsible ; 
but  a  faithful  lodge  of  Devorants  is  bound,  as  before,  to  obey 
a  power  created  by  and  set  above  themselves.  Their  lawful 
sovereign  is  in  exile  for  the  time  being,  but  none  the  less  is 
he  their  king.  And  now  any  romantic  mystery  hanging  about 
the  names  Fcrragus  and  the  Devorants  is  completely  dispelled. 
As  for  the  Thirteen,  the  author  feels  that,  on  the  strength 
of  the  details  of  this  almost  fantastic  story,  he  can  afford  to 
give  away  yet  another  prerogative,  though  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  on  record,  and  would  possibly  fetch  a  high  price  if 
brought  into  a  literary  auction  mart  ;  for  the  owner  might  in- 
flict as  many  volumes  on  the  public  as  La  Contemporaine.* 
%  The  Thirteen  were  all  of  them  men  tempered  like  Byron's 
friend  Trelawney,  the  original  (so  it  is  said)  of  "  The  Cor- 
sair." All  of  them  were  fatalists,  men  of  spirit  and  poetic 
temperament:  all  of  them  were  tired  of  the  commonplace  life 

*  A  long  series  of  so-called    Memoirs,  which  appeared  ''bout  1830. 


6  THE    THIRTEEN. 

which  they  led ;  all  felt  attracted  toward  Asiatic  pleasures  by 
all  the  vehement  strength  of  newly  awakened  and  long  dor- 
mant forces.  One  of  these,  chancing  to  take  up  "  Venice  Pre- 
served "  for  the  second  time,  admired  the  sublime  friendship 
between  Pier  and  Jaffier,  and  fell  to  musing  on  the  virtues  of 
outlaws,  the  loyalty  of  the  hulks,  the  •  honor  of  thieves,  and 
the  immense  power  that  a  few  men  can  wield  if  they  bring 
their  whole  minds  to  bear  upon  the  carrying  out  of  a  single 
will.  It  struck  him  that  the  individual  man  rose  higher  than 
men.  Then  he  began  to  think  that  if  a  few  picked  men 
should  band  themselves  together ;  and  if,  to  natural  wit,  and 
education,  and  money,  they  could  join  a  fanaticism  hot 
enough  to  fuse,  as  it  were,  all  these  separate  forces  into  a 
single  one,  then  the  whole  world  would  be  at  their  feet. 
From  that  time  forth,  with  a  tremendous  power  of  concentra- 
tion, they  could  wield  an  occult  power  against  which  the 
organization  of  society  would  be  helpless  ;  a  power  which 
would  push  obstacles  aside  and  defeat  the  will  of  others ;  and 
the  diabolical  power  of  all  would  be  at  the  service  of  each. 
A  hostile  world  apart  within  the  world,  admitting  none  of  the 
ideas,  recognizing  none  of  the  laws  of  the  world  ;  submitting 
only  to  the  sense  of  necessity,  obedient  only  from  devotion  ; 
acting  all  as  one  man  in  the  interests  of  the  comrade  who 
should  claim  the  aid  of  the  rest ;  a  band  of  buccaneers  with 
carriages  and  yellow  kid  gloves  ;  a  close  confederacy  of  men 
of  extraordinary  power,  of  amused  and  cool  spectators  of  an 
artificial  and  pretty  world  which  they  cursed  with  smiling 
lips ;  conscious  as  they  were  that  they  could  make  all  things 
bend  to  their  caprice,  weave  ingenious  schemes  of  revenge, 
and  live  with  one  life  in  thirteen  hearts,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
unfailing  pleasure  of  facing  the  world  of  men  with  a  hidden, 
misanthropy,  a  sense  that  they  were  armed  against  their  kind, 
and  could  retire  into  themselves  with  one  idea  which  the  most 
remarkable  men  had  not — all  this  constituted  a  religion  of 
pleasure  and  egoism  which  made  fanatics  of  the  Thirteen. 


THF.    THIRTFF.K.  7 

The  history  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  was  repeated  for  the  devil's 
benefit.  It  was  hideous  and  sublime. 

The  pact  was  made;  and  it  lasted,  precisely  because  it 
seemed  impossible.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  in  Paris 
there  was  a  fraternity  of  thirteen  men,  each  one  bound,  body 
and  soul,  to  the  rest,  and  all  of  them  strangers  to  each  other 
in  the  sight  of  the  world.  But  evening  found  them  gathered 
together  like  conspirators,  and  then  they  had  no  thoughts 
apart ;  riches,  like  the  wealth  of  the  Old  Man  of  the  Moun- 
tain, they  possessed  in  common  ;  they  had  their  feet  in  every 
salon,  their  hands  in  every  strong  box,  their  elbows  in  the 
streets,  their  heads  upon  all  pillows,  they  did  not  scruple  to 
help  themselves  at  their  pleasure.  No  chief  commanded 
them,  nobody  was  strong  enough.  The  liveliest  passion,  the 
most  urgent  need  took  precedence — that  was  all.  They  were 
thirteen  unknown  kings  :  unknown,  but  with  all  the  power  and 
more  than  the  power  of  kings  ;  for  they  were  both  judges  and 
executioners,  they  had  taken  wings  that  they  might  traverse 
the  heights  and  depths  of  society,  scorning  to  take  any  place 
in  it,  since  all  was  theirs.  If  the  author  learns  the  reason  of 
their  abdication  of  this  power  he  will  communicate  it. 

And  now  the  author  is  free  to  give  those  episodes  in  the 
History  of  the  Thirteen  which,  by  reason  of  the  Parisian  flavor 
of  the  details  or  the  strangeness  of  the  contrasts,  possessed  a 
peculiar  attraction  for  him. 

PARIS,  1831. 


THE  THIRTEEN. 
I. 

FERRAGUS, 

CHIEF   OF   THE    DEVORANTS. 

To  Hector  Berlioz. 

THERE  are  streets  in  Paris  which  have  lost  their  character  as 
hopelessly  as  a  man  guilty  of  some  shameful  action  ;  there  are 
likewise  noble  streets,  streets  that  are  simply  honest  and  nothing 
more,  young  streets  as  to  whose  morality  the  public  has  as  yet 
formed  no  opinion,  and  streets  older  than  the  oldest  dowager. 
Then  there  are  deadly  streets,  respectable  streets,  streets  that 
are  always  clean,  and  streets  that  are  invariably  filthy  ;  artisan, 
industrial,  and  commercial  streets.  The  streets  of  Paris,  in 
short,  possess  human  qualities,  so  that  you  cannot  help  form- 
ing certain  ideas  of  them  on  a  first  impression.  There  are 
low  streets  where  you  would  not  care  to  linger,  and  streets  in 
which  you  would  like  to  live.  Some,  like  the  Rue  Montmartre, 
for  instance,  turn  a  fair  face  on  you  at  the  first  and  end  in  a 
fish's  tail.  The  Rue  de  la  Paix  is  a  wide  and  imposing  street, 
but  it  arouses  none  of  the  nobly  gracious  thoughts  which  take 
a  susceptible  nature  at  unawares  in  the  Rue  Royale,  while 
it  certainly  lacks  the  majesty  which  pervades  the  Place  Ven- 
dome. 

If  you  walk  through  the  He  Saint-Louis  the  loneliness  of  the 
spot,  the  dreary  look  of  the  houses  and  great  empty  mansions 
is  enough  to  account  for  the  melancholy  which  settles  on  your 
nerves.  The  He  Saint-Louis,  a  corpse  no  longer  tenanted  by 
farmers-general,  is  the  Venice  of  Paris.  The  Place  de  la 
Bourse  is  garrulous,  bustling,  common ;  it  is  only  beautiful  by 
(8) 


THE    THIRTEEN.  9 

moonlight;  an  epitomized  Paris  in  broad  day,  by  night  a 
dreamlike  vision  of  ancient  Greece. 

Is  not  the  Rue  Traversiere  Saint-Honore  plainly  a  shameless 
street,  with  its  villainous  little  houses  for  mistresses,  a  couple 
of  windows  in  width,  and  vice,  and  crime,  and  misery  on 
every  floor?  And  there  are  thoroughfares  with  a  North  aspect, 
visited  by  the  sun  only  three  or  four  times  in  the  year ;  deadly 
streets  are  they,  where  life  is  taken  with  impunity,  and  the 
law  looks  on  and  never  interferes.  In  olden  days  the  Parlia- 
ment would  probably  have  summoned  the  lieutenant  of  police 
to  hear  a  little  plain  speaking,  or  at  least  they  would  have 
passed  a  vote  of  censure  on  the  street,  just  as  on  another  occa- 
sion they  recorded  their  dissatisfaction  with  the  wigs  worn  by 
the  Chapter  of  Beauvais.  Yet,  M.  Benoiston  de  Chateauneuf 
has  shown  conclusively  that  the  mortality  in  certain  streets  is 
twice  as  high  as  the  normal  death-rate  !  And  to  sum  up  the 
matter  in  a  single  example :  what  is  the  Rue  Fromenteau  but 
a  haunt  of  vice  and  murder? 

These  observations  may  be  dark  sayings  for  those  who  live 
beyond  the  bounds  of  Paris ;  but  they  will  be  apprehended  at 
once  by  those  students,  thinkers,  poets,  and  men  of  pleasure, 
who  know  the  art  of  walking  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  reap  a 
harvest  of  delights  borne  in  on  the  tides  of  life  that  ebb  and 
flow  within  her  walls  with  every  hour.  For  these,  Paris  is  the 
most  fascinating  of  monsters  ;  here  she  is  a  pretty  woman,  there 
a  decrepit  pauper ;  some  quarters  are  spick  and  span  as  the 
coins  of  a  new  reign,  and  a  nook  here  and  there  is  elegant  as 
a  woman  of  fashion. 

A  monster,  indeed,  is  the  great  city,  in  every  sense  of  the 
word  !  In  the  garrets  you  find,  as  it  were,  its  brain  full  of 
knowledge  and  genius;  the  second  floor  is  a  digestive  appa- 
ratus, and  the  stores  below  are  unmistakable  feet,  whence  all 
the  busy  foot-traffic  issues. 

Oh!  what  a  life  of  incessant  activity  the  monster  leads! 
The  final  vibration  of  the  last  carriage  returning  from  the  ball 


30  THE    THIRTEEN. 

has  scarcely  died  away  before  Its  arms  begin  to  stir  a  little  at 
the  barriers,  and  the  City  gives  itself  a  gradual  shake.  All 
the  gates  begin  to  yawn,  turning  on  their  hinges  like  the 
membranes  of  some  gigantic  lobster  invisibly  controlled  by 
some  thirty  thousand  men  and  women.  Each  one  of  these 
thirty  thousand  must  live  in  the  alloted  six  square  feet  of  space 
which  serves  as  kitchen,  workshop,  nursery,  bedroom,  and 
garden ;  each  one  is  bound  to  see  everything,  while  there  is 
scarce  light  enough  to  see  anything.  Imperceptibly  the  mon- 
ster's joints  creak,  the  stir  of  life  spreads,  the  street  finds  a 
tongue,  and  by  noon  it  is  alive  everywhere,  the  chimneys 
smoke,  the  monster  feeds,  and  with  a  roar  It  stretches  out  its 
myraid  paws.  'Tis  a  wonderful  sight  !  And  yet,  oh  Paris  ! 
who  has  not  marveled  at  thy  dark  passages,  thy  fitful  gleams 
of  light,  thy  deep,  soundless  blind  alleys  ?  They  who  have 
not  heard  thy  murmurs  between  midnight  and  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning  know  nothing  as  yet  of  thy  real  poetry,  of  thy 
fantastic,  broad  contrast. 

There  are  a  very  few  amateurs,  amateurs  are  they  that  can 
keep  a  steady  head  and  take  their  Paris  with  gusto  ;  and  these 
know  the  physiognomy  of  the  city  so  well  that  they  know 
"even  her  spots,  her  blemishes,  and  her  warts."  Others 
may  think  of  Paris  as  the  monstrous  marvel,  as  an  astounding 
assemblage  of  brains  and  machinery  in  motion,  as  the  City 
of  a  Hundred  Thousand  Romances,  the  head  of  the  world. 
But  for  these  who  know  her,  Paris  wears  a  dull  or  a  gay  face, 
she  is  ugly  or  fair,  alive  or  dead  ;  for  them  she  is  a  living 
creature.  Every  room  in  a  house  is  a  lobe  of  the  cellular 
tissue  of  the  great  courtesan,  whose  heart,  and  brain,  and 
fantastic  life  they  know  to  the  uttermost.  Therefore  they  are 
her  lovers.  They  look  up  at  a  street  corner,  knowing  that 
they  shall  see  a  clock  face;  they  tell  a  friend  with  an  empty 
snuff-box  to  "  take  such  and  such  a  turning,  and  you  will  find 
a  tobacconist's  store  to  the  left,  next-door  to  a  confectioner 
that  has  a  pretty  wife." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  11 

For  poets  of  this  order,  a  walk  through  Paris  is  an  expen- 
sive luxury.  How  refuse  to  spend  a  few  minutes  in  watching 
the  dramas,  the  accidents,  the  faces,  the  picturesque  chance 
effects  which  importune  you  in  the  streets  of  the  restless  Queen 
of  Cities  that  goes  clad  in  placards,  yet  can  boast  not  one 
clean  corner,  so  complacent  is  she  to  the  vices  of  the  French 
nation.  Who  has  not  left  home  in  the  morning  for  the 
uttermost  ends  of  Paris,  and  recognized  by  dinner-time  the 
futility  of  his  efforts  to  get  away  from  the  centre  ?  Such  as 
these  will  pardon  these  vagrant  beginnings,  which,  after  all, 
may  be  summed  up  by  one  eminently  profitable  and  novel 
observation  (so  far  as  any  observation  can  be  novel  in  Paris 
where  there  is  nothing  new,  not  even  the  statue  set  up  yes- 
terday, on  which  the  street  urchin  has  left  his  mark  already;. 

Well,  then — there  are  certain  streets,  unknown  for  the  most 
part  by  fashionable  people,  there  are  certain  districts  and 
certain  houses  to  which  a  woman  of  fashion  cannot  go,  unless 
she  wishes  that  the  most  cruelly  injurious  constructions  shall 
be  put  upon  her  errand.  If  she  is  a  wealthy  woman  with  a 
carriage  of  her  own,  and  if  she  chooses  to  go  on  foot  or  dis- 
guised through  one  of  these  slums,  her  reputation  as  an 
honest  woman  is  compromised.  If,  furthermore,  it  should 
so  happen  that  she  is  seen  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
the  conjectures  which  an  observer  may  permit  himself  are 
like  to  have  appalling  consequences.  And,  finally,  if  the 
woman  is  young  and  pretty  :  if  she  is  seen  to  enter  a  house 
in  one  of  these  neighborhoods  ;  if  the  house  has  a  long,  dark, 
damp,  and  reeking  passage  entry;  if,  at  the  end  of  the  pa-s- 
age, a  feeble,  flickering  lamp  lights  up  the  features  of  a 
hideous  crone  with  bony  fingers — then,  to  tell  the  truth  in 
the  interests  of  young  and  pretty  women,  that  woman  is  lost. 
She  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  first  man  of  her  acquaintance 
who  chances  to  meet  her  in  these  foul  ways. 

And  there  is  a  street  in  Paris  where  such  an  encounter  may 
end  in  a  most  dreadful  and  ghastly  tragedy,  a  tragedy  of 


12  THE    THIRTEEN. 

blood,  a  tragedy  in  the  modern  vein.  Unluckily,  the  con- 
vincingness of  the  situation  and  the  dramatic  element  in  it 
will  be  lost,  like  the  modern  drama,  upon  all  save  the  very 
few ;  and  a  sad  pity  it  is  that  the  tale  must  be  told  to  a  public 
that  cannot  fully  appreciate  the  truth  of  the  local  color.  Still, 
who  can  flatter  himself  that  he  will  ever  be  understood  ?  We 
all  die  unappreciated.  It  is  the  lot  of  women  and  of  men  of 
letters. 

At  half-past  eight  one  February  evening,  thirteen  years  ago, 
a  young  man  chanced  to  turn  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Pagevin 
into  the  Rue  des  Vieux-Augustins  precisely  at  the  point  where 
the  Rue  Soly  enters  it.  Now,  at  that  time  there  was  not  a 
wall  in  the  Rue  Pagevin  but  echoed  a  foul  word  ;  the  Rue 
Soly  was  one  of  the  narrowest  and  least  practicable  thorough- 
fares in  Paris,  not  excepting  the  least  frequented  nooks  in  the 
most  deserted  streets  of  the  city ;  and  the  young  man  came 
there  by  one  of  those  chances  that  do  not  come  twice  in  a 
lifetime.  Arrived  at  this  point,  he  was  walking  carelessly 
along  when  he  saw  a  woman  a  few  paces  ahead  of  him,  and 
fancied  that  he  saw  in  her  a  vague  resemblance  to  one  of  the 
prettiest  women  in  Paris,  a  beautiful  and  modest  woman  whom 
he  secretly  and  passionately  loved  ;  loved,  too,  without  hope. 
She  was  married.  In  a  moment  his  heart  gave  a  bound.  An 
intolerable  heat,  kindled  in  his  diaphragm,  spread  through 
every  vein.  He  felt  a  cold  chill  along  his  spine,  a  tingling 
sensation  on  the  surface  of  his  face. 

He  was  young,  he  was  in  love,  he  knew  Paris.  His  per- 
spicacity would  not  allow  him  to  shut  his  eyes  to  ail  the 
vile  possibilities  of  the  situation — a  young,  fair,  and  wealthy 
woman  of  fashion  stealing  along  the  street  with  a  guilty,  fur- 
tive step  !  That  She  should  be  in  that  filthy  neighborhood  at 
that  hour  of  night ! 

His  love  seems  romantic,  no  doubt,  and  the  more  so  because 
he  was  an  officer  in  the  Guards.  Of  a  man  in  an  infantry 


THE    THIRTEEN.  13 

regiment  the  thing  is  not  inconceivable ;  but  as  a  cavalry 
officer  high  in  the  service,  he  belonged  to  a  division  of  the 
army  that  most  desires  rapid  conquests.  The  cavalry  are  vain 
of  their  uniform,  but  they  are  vainer  still  of  their  success  with 
women.  Nevertheless,  the  officer's  love  was  a  genuine  pas- 
sion that  will  seem  great  to  many  a  young  heart.  He  loved 
the  woman  because  she  was  virtuous.  Her  virtues,  her  re- 
served grace,  the  saintliness  that  awed  him — these  were  the 
most  precious  treasures  of  his  hidden  passion.  And  she,  in 
truth,  was  worthy  of  a  Platonic  love  such  as  you  sometimes 
find  like  a  rare  flower  on  the  chronicler's  page  among  the  ruin 
and  bloodshed  of  the  Middle  Ages.  She  was  worthy  to  be 
the  secret  spring  of  all  a  young  man's  actions ;  the  source  of 
a  love  as  high  and  pure  as  the  blue  heavens,  a  love  without 
hope,  to  which  a  man  clings  because  it  never  disappoints  him, 
a  love  prodigal  of  uncontrolled  delight,  especially  at  an  age 
when  hearts  are  hot  and  imaginations  poignant,  and  a  man's 
eyes  see  very  clearly. 

There  are  strange,  grotesque,  inconceivable  night  effects  to 
be  seen  in  Paris;  you  cannot  think,  unless  you  have  amused 
yourself  with  watching  these,  how  fantastic  a  woman's  shape 
can  grow  in  the  dusk.  Sometimes  the  creature  whom  you 
follow  by  accident  or  design  seems  graceful  and  slender ; 
sometimes  a  glimpse  of  a  stocking,  if  it  is  very  white,  leads 
you  to  think  that  the  outlines  beneath  are  dainty  and  fine  ; 
a  figure,  muffled  up,  it  may  be,  in  a  shawl  or  a  pelisse,  de- 
velops young  luxuriant  curves  in  the  shadows  ;  and  as  a  last 
touch,  the  uncertain  light  from  a  store-window  or  a  street 
lamp  lends  the  stranger  a  fleeting  halo,  an  illusion  which  stirs 
and  kindles  imagination  to  go  beyond  the  truth.  And  then, 
the  senses  are  stirred,  color  and  life  are  put  into  everything,  the 
woman  is  transfigured  ;  her  outward  form  grows  fairer  ;  there 
are  moments  when  she  is  a  woman  no  longer,  she  is  an  evil 
spirit,  a  will-of-the-wisp.  drawing  you  farther  and  farther  by 
a  glowing  magnetism  until  you  reach — some  decent  dwelling, 


14  THE    THIRTEEN. 

and  the  poor  housewife,  terrified  by  your  menacing  approach, 
and  quaking  at  the  sound  of  a  man's  boots,  promptly  shuts 
the  door  in  your  face  without  giving  you  so  much  as  a  glance. 

Suddenly  the  flickering  light  from  a  shoemaker's  window 
fell  across  the  woman  in  front ;  it  struck  just  across  the  hollow 
of  the  back.  Ah  !  surely  those  curves  belonged  to  Her  only 
among  women  !  Who  else  knew  that  secret  of  chaste  move- 
ment which  all  innocently  brings  the  beauty  of  the  most  at- 
tractive shape  into  relief. 

It  was  the  same  shawl  and  velvet  bonnet  that  she  wore  in 
the  morning.  Not  a  speck  on  her  gray  stockings ;  not  a  trace 
of  mud  on  her  shoes.  The  shawl  clung  tightly  about  the  out- 
lines of  her  bust,  vaguely  moulding  its  exquisite  contours ; 
but  the  young  man  had  seen  those  white  shoulders  in  the  ball- 
room, and  he  knew  what  a  wealth  of  beauty  was  hidden  be- 
neath the  shawl. 

An  intelligent  observer  can  guess  by  the  way  in  which  a 
Parisienne  wraps  her  shawl  about  her  shoulders,  by  her  man- 
ner of  lifting  her.foot,  on  what  mysterious  errand  she  is  bent. 
There  is*an  indescribable  tremor  and  lightness  about  her  and 
her  movements ;  she  seems  to  weigh  less,  she  walks  on  and  on, 
or  rather  she  threads  her  way  like  a  spinning  star,  flitting, 
borne  along  by  a  thought,  which  the  folds  of  her  dress,  the 
flutter  of  her  skirts,  betray. 

The  young  man  quickened  his  pace,  passed,  and  turned  his 
head  to  look  at  her —  Presto  !  She  had  disappeared  down 
an  entry,  a  wicket  with  a  bell  attached  slammed  and  tinkled 
after  her.  He  turned  back  and  caught  sight  of  her  as  she 
climbed  the  staircase  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  not  without 
obsequious  greetings  on  the  part  of  an  old  portress  below.  It 
was  a  crooked  staircase,  the  lamplight  fell  full  on  the  lowe* 
steps,  up  which  the  lady  sprang  lightly  and  briskly,  as  an 
impatient  woman  might  do. 

"Why  impatient?"  he  asked  himself,  as  he  went  back  to 
plant  himself  against  the  opposite  wall.  He  gazed  up,  luck- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  15 

less  wight,  watching  every  story  as  narrowly  as  if  he  were  a 
detective  on  the  track  of  a  conspirator. 

It  was  a  house  like  thousands  of  others  in  Paris,  mean,  com- 
monplace, narrow,  dingy,  with  three  windows  on  each  of  the 
four  floors.  The  store  and  the  entresol  belonged  to  the  shoe- 
maker. The  second  floor  blinds  were  closed.  Whither  had 
the  lady  gone?  He  fancied  that  he  heard  the  jingling  of  a 
door  bell  on  the  third  floor.  And,  in  fact,  a  light  began  to 
move  in  a  room  above,  with  two  brightly  illuminated  windows, 
and  presently  appeared  in  a  third  window,  hitherto  in  dark- 
ness, which  seemed  to  belong  to  the  parlor  or  dining-room. 
In  a  moment  the  vague  shadow  of  a  woman's  bonnet  appeared 
on  the  ceiling,  the  door  was  closed,  the  first  room  relegated 
to  darkness,  and  the  two  farther  windows  shone  red  as  before. 
Just  then  a  voice  cried  :  "  Look  out !  "  and  something  struck 
against  the  young  man's  shoulder. 

"  You  don't  seem  to  mind  in  the  least  what  you  are  about," 
said  the  gruff  voice.  It  was  a  workman,  carrying  a  long  plank 
on  his  shoulder.  He  went  by.  The  man  might  have  been 
sent  as  a  warning  by  Providence  to  ask  the  prying  inquirer: 
"What  are  you  meddling  for?  Mind  your  own  business, 
and  leave  Parisiennes  to  their  own  little  affairs." 

The  officer  folded  his  arms  ;  and  being  out  of  sight  of  every 
one,  he  allowed  two  tears  of  rage  to  roll  down  his  cheeks. 
The  sight  of  these  shadows  moving  across  the  windows  was 
painful  to  him  ;  he  looked  away  up  the  Rue  des  Vieux-Augus- 
tins,  and  saw  a  hackney-coach  drawn  up  under  a  blind  wall,  at 
a  distance  from  any  house-door  or  store-window. 

Is  it  she?  Or  is  it  not?  Life  or  death  for  a  lover.  And 
the  lover  waited  in  suspense  for  an  age  of  twenty  minutes. 
Then  she  came  downstairs,  and  he  knew  past  mistake  that  this 
was  the  woman  whom  he  loved  in  his  secret  soul.  \Vt  even 
now  he  tried  to  doubt.  The  fair  stranger  went  to  the  cab  and 
stepped  into  it. 

"  Tiie  house  is  alwavs  there,"  though:  he  ;   "  I  can  search 


16  THE    THIRTEEN. 

it  at  any  time ;  "  so  he  ran  after  the  cab  to  make  quite  certain 
of  the  lady.  Any  remaining  doubt  was  soon  removed. 

The  vehicle  stopped  before  an  artificial  flower  store  in  the 
Rue  de  Richelieu,  close  to  the  Rue  de  Menars.  The  lady 
alighted,  entered  the  store,  sent  out  the  fare  to  the  cabman, 
and  chose  some  marabouts.  Feather  plumes  for  that  black 
hair  of  hers,  with  her  dark  beauty  !  She  brought  the  feathers 
close  to  her  face  to  judge  of  the  effect.  The  officer  fancied  he 
could  hear  the  store  woman  speaking. 

"  Nothing  more  becoming,  madame,  to  a  dark  complexion  ; 
there  is  something  rather  too  hard  about  the  contours  of  a 
brunette ;  the  marabouts  impart  just  the  fluffy  touch  which  is 
wanting.  Her  grace  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  says  that  the 
feathers  lend  something  vague  and  Ossianic,  and  a  great  dis- 
tinction to  the  face." 

"  Well,  send  them  to  me  at  once." 

With  that  the  lady  tripped  away  round  the  corner  into  the 
Rue  de  Menars  and  entered  her  own  house.  The  door  closed 
upon  her,  and  the  young  lover,  his  hopes  lost,  and  double  mis- 
fortune, his  cherished  beliefs  lost  too,  went  through  Paris  like 
a  drunken  man,  till  before  long  he  found  himself  at  his  own 
door,  with  no  very  clear  knowledge  how  he  came  there.  He 
flung  himself  into  an  easy-chair,  rested  his  feet  on  the  fire- 
dogs,  and  sat,  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  while  his  soaked 
boots  first  dried  and  then  scorched  on  the  bars.  It  was  a 
dreadful  hour  for  him  ;  he  had  come  to  one  of  those  crises  in 
a  man's  life  when  character  is  modified  ;  and  the  course  of 
action  of  the  best  of  men  depends  upon  the  first  lucky  or  un- 
lucky step  that  he  chances  to  take;  upon  Providence  or  Fate, 
whichever  you  choose. 

He  came  of  a  good  family,  not  that  their  nobility  was  of 
very  ancient  date  ;  but  there  are  so  few  old  houses  left  in  these 
days  that  any  young  man  comes  of  an  old  family.  One  of  his 
ancestors  had  purchased  the  post  of  councilor  to  the  Parliament 
of  Paris,  and  in  course  of  time  became  president.  His  sons, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  17 

with  a  fine  fortune  apiece,  had  entered  the  King's  service, 
made  good  marriages,  and  arrived  at  Court.  Then  came  the 
Revolution  and  swept  them  all  away.  One  of  them,  however, 
an  old  and  stubborn  dowager,  who  had  no  mind  to  emigrate, 
remained  in  Paris,  was  put  in  prison,  and  lay  there  in  danger 
of  her  life  till  the  9th  Thermidor  saved  her,  and  finally  she 
recovered  her  property.  Afterward,  at  an  auspicious  moment 
in  1804,  she  sent  for  her  grandson,  Auguste  de  Maulincour, 
sole  surviving  scion  of  the  Carbonnons  de  Maulincour,  and 
in  the  characters  of  mother,  noble,  and  self-willed  dowager, 
brought  him  up  with  treble  care. 

At  a  later  day,  after  the  Restoration,  Auguste  de  Maulincour, 
aged  eighteen,  entered  the  Maison  Rouge,  followed  the  Princes 
to  Ghent,  received  a  commission  in  the  Guards,  and  at  three- 
and-twenty  was  a  major  in  a  cavalry  regiment — a  superb  posi- 
tion which  he  owed  to  his  grandmother.  And  indeed,  in 
spite  of  her  age,  the  old  lady  knew  her  way  at  Court  re- 
markably well. 

This  twofold  biography,  with  some  variations,  is  substan- 
tially the  history  of  every  family  of  emigrants,  when  blessed 
with  debts  and  possessions,  dowagers  and  tact. 

Mme.  la  Baronne  de  Maulincour  had  a  friend,  the  elderly 
Vidame  de  Pamiers,  a  sometime  commander  of  the  Knights 
of  Malta.  It  was  an  eternal  friendship  of  the  kind  that  grows 
out  of  other  ties  formed  sixty  years  ago.  a  friendship  which 
nothing  can  destroy,  because  down  in  the  depths  of  it  lie 
secrets  of  the  hearts  of  man  and  woman.  These,  if  one  had 
the  time,  would  be  well  worth  guessing ;  but  such  secrets,  con- 
densed into  a  score  of  lines,  lose  their  savor  ;  they  should 
furnish  forth  instead  some  four  volumes  that  might  prove  as 
interesting  as  "  Le  Doyen  de  Killerine " — a  work  which 
young  men  are  wont  to  discuss  and  criticise  and  leave  unread. 

Auguste  de  Maulincour  was  connected,  therefore,  with  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain  through  his  grandmother  jnd  the 
vidame  ;  and  with  a  name  that  dated  two  centuries  back,  he 
2 


18  THE    THIRTEEN. 

could  assume  the  airs  and  opinions  of  others  who  traced  their 
descent  from  Clovis.  Tall,  pale,  slender,  and  delicate-looking, 
a  man  of  honor,  whose  courage,  moreover,  was  undoubted 
(for  he  had  fought  duels  without  hesitation  for  the  least  thing 
in  life) — he  had  never  yet  been  on  a  field  of  battle,  yet  wore 
the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  at  his  button-hole.  He 
represented,  as  you  see,  one  of  the  mistakes  of  the  Restoration, 
perhaps  one  of  its  more  pardonable  mistakes. 

The  young  manhood  of  the  Restoration  period  was  unlike 
the  youth  of  any  other  epoch,  in  that  it  was  placed  between 
memories  of  the  Empire  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  exile  on  the 
other ;  between  the  old  traditions  of  the  Court  and  the  con- 
scientious bourgeois  system  of  training  for  appointments ; 
between  bigotry  and  fancy  dress-balls ;  between  a  Louis 
XVIII.,  who  saw  nothing  but  the  present  moment,  and  a 
Charles  X..  who  looked  too  far  ahead.  The  young  genera- 
tion was  always  halting  between  two  political  creeds;  blind 
and  yet  clairvoyant,  bound  to  accept  the  will  of  the  King, 
knowing  the  while  that  the  Crown  was  entering  on  a  mistaken 
policy.  The  older  men  counted  the  younger  as  naught,  and 
jealously  kept  the  reins  of  government  in  their  enfeebled  hands 
at  a  time  when  the  M6narchy  might  have  been  saved  by  their 
withdrawal  and  the  accession  of  that  young  France  at  whom 
the  old-fashioned  doctrinaires  and  emigres  of  the  Restoration 
are  still  pleased  to  laugh. 

Auguste  de  Maulincour  was  one  victim  of  the  ideas  that 
weighed  upon  the  youth  of  those  days.  It  was  in  this  wise: 
The  Vidamc  de  Pamiers,  even  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  was 
still  a  very  lively  personage,  who  had  both  seen  and  lived  a 
great  deal.  He  told  a  story  well,  he  was  a  man  of  honor  and 
gallantry,  but  so  far  as  women  were  concerned  he  held  the 
most  detestable  opinions.  He  fell  in  love,  but  he  did  not  re- 
spect women.  Women's  honor,  'Women's  sentiments  ?  Fiddle- 
de-dee  !  folly  and  make-believe.  In  the  company  of  women 
he  believed  in  them,  did  this  ci-devant  "monster;"  he 


THE    THIRTEEN.  19 

brought  out  their  merits,  ht  never  contradicted  a  lady.  But 
among  friends,  when  women  were  the  topic,  the  vid.ime  laid 
it  down  as  an  axiom  that  the  whole  duty  of  a  young  man  was 
to  deceive  women  and  to  carry  on  several  intrigues  at  once  ; 
and  that  when  a  young  man  attempted  to  meddle  with  affairs 
of  State,  he  made  a  gross  mistake. 

It  is  sad  to  be  obliged  to  sketch  such  a  hackneyed  character. 
Where  has  he  not  appeared  ?  Is  he  not  literally  almost  as 
worn  out  as  the  Imperial  Grenadier?  But  over  M.  de  Maulin- 
cour  the  vidame  exercised  an  influence  which  must  be  re- 
corded ;  he  was  a  moralist  after  his  own  fashion,  and  he  used 
to  try  to  convert  the  young  man  to  the  doctrines  of  the  great 
age  of  gallantry. 

As  for  the  dowager,  she  was  a  tender,  pious  woman,  placed 
between  her  vidame  and  God  ;  a  pattern  of  grace  and  sweet- 
ness, but  none  the  less  endowed  with  a  persistence  which 
never  went  beyond  the  bounds  of  good  taste,  and  always 
triumphed  in  the  end.  She  had  tried  to  preserve  her  grand- 
son in  all  the  fair  illusions  of  life ;  she  had  brought  him  up  on 
the  best  principles  ;  she  had  given  him  all  her  own  delicacy 
of  feeling,  and  had  made  a  diffident  man  of  him,  and  to  all 
appearance  an  absolute  fool.  His  boyish  sensibility,  un- 
touched by  contact  with  the  world,  had  met  with  no  rubs 
without ;  so  modest,  so  keenly  sensitive  was  it,  that  actions 
and  maxims  to  which  the  world  attaches  no  importance 
grieved  him  sorely.  He  felt  ashamed  of  his  sensitiveness,  hid 
it  beneath  a  show  of  assurance,  and  suffered  in  silence,  laugh- 
ing in  company  at  things  which  he  reverenced  in  his  secret 
heart.  And  therefore  he  was  mistaken  in  his  choice  ;  for  by 
a  common  freak  of  Fate  he,  the  man  of  mild  melancholy, 
who  saw  love  in  its  spiritual  aspects,  must  needs  fall  in  love 
with  a  woman  who  detested  German  sentimentalism.  He  be- 
gan to  distrust  himself.  He  grew  moodv,  hugged  himself  on 

P  o  -    '  O  o 

his  troubles,  and  made  moan  because  he  was  not  understood. 
And  then — since  we  always  desire  a  thing  more  vehemently 


20  THE    THIRTEEN. 

because  it  is  hard  to  win — he  continued  to  worship  women 
with  the  ingenuous  tenderness  and  feline  delicacy  of  which 
they  possess  the  secret ;  perhaps,  too,  they  prefer  to  keep  the 
monopoly  of  it.  And,  indeed,  though  women  complain  that 
men  love  amiss,  they  have  very  little  taste  for  the  semi-femi- 
nine nature  in  man.  Their  whole  superiority  consists  in  mak- 
ing the  man  believe  that  he  is  their  inferior  in  love  ;  for  which 
reason  they  are  quite  ready  to  discard  a  lover  when  he  is  ex- 
perienced enough  to  rob  them  of  the  fears  in  which  they 
choose  to  deck  themselves,  to  relieve  them  of  the  delicious 
torments  of  feigned  jealousy,  the  troubles  of  disappointed 
hopes  and  vain  suspense,  and  the  whole  train  of  dear  feminine 
miseries,  in  short.  Women  hold  Grandisons  in  abhorrence. 
What  is  more  contrary  to  their  nature  than  a  tranquil,  perfect 
love  ?  They  must  have  emotions.  Bliss  without  storms  for 
them  is  not  bliss  at  all.  A  soul  great  enough  to  bring  the  In- 
finite into  love  is  as  uncommon  among  women  as  genius 
among  men.  A  great  passion  is  as  rare  as  a  masterpiece. 
Outside  this  love  there  lies  nothing  but  arrangements  and 
passing  excitations,  contemptible,  like  all  petty  things. 

In  the  midst  of  the  secret  disasters  of  his  heart,  while  he 
was  seeking  some  one  who  should  understand  him  (that  quest, 
by  the  way,  is  the  lover's  folly  of  our  time),  Auguste  found  a 
perfect  woman — a  woman  with  that  indescribable  touch  of 
sacredness  and  holiness  which  inspires  such  reverence  that 
love  needs  all  the  support  of  a  long  intimacy  to  declare  itself. 
He  found  her  in  a  circle  as  far  as  possible  from  his  own,  in  the 
second  sphere  of  that  financial  world  in  which  great  capital- 
ists take  the  first  place. 

Then  Auguste  gave  himself  up  wholly  to  the  bliss  of  the 
most  moving  and  profound  of  passions  ;  a  purely  contempla- 
tive love — a  love  made  up  of  uncounted  repressed  longings, 
of  shades  of  passion  so  vague,  so  deep,  so  fugitive,  so  vivid, 
that  it  is  hard  to  find  a  comparison  for  them  ;  they  are  like 
sweet  scents,  or  sunlight,  or  cloud  shadows,  like  all  things 


THE    THIRTEEN.  21 

that  shine  forth  for  a  moment  in  the  outer  world  to  vanish, 
revive,  and  die,  and  leave  a  long  wake  of  emotion  in  the 
heart.  When  a  man  is  young  enough  to  conceive  melancholy 
and  far-off  hopes,  to  see  in  woman  something  more  than  a 
woman,  can  any  greater  happiness  befall  him  than  this — of 
loving  so  well  that  the  mere  contact  of  a  white  gloved  hand, 
the  light  touch  of  a  woman's  hair,  the  sound  of  a  voice,  the 
chance  of  one  look,  fills  him  with  a  joy  outpassing  a  fortunate 
lover's  ecstasy  of  possession?  And  for  this  reason,  none  but 
slighted,  shy,  unattractive,  unhappy  men  and  women,  un- 
known lovers,  know  all  that  there  is  in  the  sound  of  the  voice 
of  the  one  whom  they  love.  It  is  because  those  fire-laden  vibra- 
tions of  the  air  have  their  source  and  origin  in  the  soul  itself 
that  they  bring  hearts  into  communion  with  such  violence, 
such  lucid  thought  transferrence.  So  little  misleading  are  they 
that  a  single  modulation  is  often  a  revelation  in  itself.  What 
enchantment  is  poured  forth  upon  a  poet's  heart  by  the 
musical  resonance  of  a  low  voice  !  What  freshness  it  spreads 
through  his  soul,  what  visions  it  summons  up  !  Love  is  in 
the  voice  before  the  eyes  make  confession. 

Auguste,  a  poet  after  the  manner  of  lovers — for  there  are 
poets  who  feel  and  poets  who  express,  and  the  former  are  the 
happier — Auguste  had  known  the  sweetness  of  all  those  early 
joys,  so  far-reaching,  so  abundant.  SHE  was  the  possessor  of 
such  an  entrancing  voice  as  the  most  guileful  of  women  might 
covet,  that  she  might  deceive  others  at  her  pleasure  ;  hers  were 
those  silver  notes,  low  only  to  the  ear,  that  peal  aloud  through 
the  heart,  soothing  the  tumult  and  unrest  that  they  stir. 

And  this  was  the  woman  who  had  gone  at  night  to  the  Rue 
Soly  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Rue  Pagevin  !  He  had  seen 
her  stealing  into  a  house  of  ill-fame  ;  and  that  most  magnificent 
of  passions  had  been  brought  low.  The  vidame's  reasoning 
triumphed. 

"  If  she  is  false  to  her  husband,  we  will  both  avenge  our- 
selves," said  Auguste.  And  there  was  still  love  left  in  that 


22  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"if."  The  suspended  judgment  of  Cartesian  philosophy  is  a 
homage  always  due  to  virtue.  The  clocks  struck  ten ;  and 
Auguste  de  Maulincour  bethought  himself  that  the  woman  he 
loved  must  surely  be  going  to  a  dance  at  a  house  that  he 
knew.  He  dressed,  went  thither,  and  made  a  furtive  survey 
of  the  rooms.  Mme.  de  Nucingen,  seeing  him  thus  intent, 
came  to  speak  to  him. 

"You  are  looking  for  Madame  Jules;  she  has  not  yet 
come." 

"  Good-evening,  dear,"  said  a  voice. 

Mme.  de  Nucingen  and  Auguste  both  turned.  There  stood 
Mme.  Jules  dressed  in  white,  simple  and  noble,  wearing  those 
very  feathers  which  the  baron  had  watched  her  choose  in  the 
store.  That  voice  of  Love  went  to  his  heart.  If  he  had  only 
known  how  to  assert  the  slightest  claim  to  be  jealous  of  the 
woman  before  him,  he  would  have  turned  her  to  stone  then 
and  there  with  the  exclamation:  "Rue  Soly  !  "  But  he,  a 
stranger,  might  have  repeated  those  words  a  hundred  times  in 
Mme.  Jules'  ear,  and  she  in  astonishment  would  merely  ask 
him  what  he  meant.  He  stared  at  her  with  dazed  eyes. 

Ill-natured  men  who  scoff  at  everything  may,  perhaps,  find 
it  highly  amusing  to  discover  a  woman's  secret,  to  know  that 
her  chastity  is  a  lie,  that  there  are  strange  thoughts  in  the 
depths  beneath  the  quiet  surface,  and  an  ugly  tragedy  behind 
the  pure  forehead.  But  there  are  others,  no  doubt,  who  are 
saddened  at  heart  by  it ;  and  many  of  the  scoffers,  when  at 
home  and  alone  with  themselves,  curse  the  world,  and  despise 
such  a  woman.  This  was  how  Auguste  de  Maulincour  felt  as 
he  confronted  Mme.  Jules.  It  was  a  strange  position.  He 
and  this  woman  exchanged  a  few  words  seven  or  eight  times 
in  a  season — that  was  all ;  yet  he  was  charging  her  with  stolen 
pleasure  of  which  she  knew  nothing,  and  pronouncing  judg- 
ment without  telling  her  of  the  accusation. 

Many  a  young  man  has  done  the  same  and  gone  home 
broken-hearted  because  all  is  over  between  him  and  some 


THE    THIRTEEN.  23 

woman  whom  he  once  worshiped  in  his  heart,  and  now  scorns 
in  his  inmost  soul.  Then  follow  soliloquies  heard  of  none, 
spoken  to  the  walls  of  some  lonely  refuge ;  storms  raised  and 
quieted  in  the  heart's  depths,  wonderful  scenes  of  man's  inner 
life  which  still  await  their  painter. 

M.  Jules  Desmarets  made  the  round  of  the  rooms,  while  his 
wife  took  a  seat.  But  she  seemed  embarrassed  in  some  way  ; 
and,  as  she  chatted  with  her  neighbor,  she  stole  a  glance  now 
and  again  at  her  husband.  M.  Jules  Desmarets  was  the  Baron 
de  Nucingen's  stockbroker.  And  now  for  the  history  of  the 
husband  and  wife. 

M.  Desmarets,  five  years  before  his  marriage,  was  a  clerk  in 
a  stockbroker's  office  ;  he  had  nothing  in  the  world  but  his 
slender  salary.  But  he  was  one  of  those  men  whom  misfor- 
tune teaches  to  know  life  in  a  very  few  lessons,  men  who  strike 
out  their  line  and  keep  to  it  persistently  as  an  insect ;  like 
other  obstinate  creatures  he  could  sham  death  if  anything 
stopped  him,  and  weary  out  the  patience  of  opponents  by  the 
perseverance  of  the  woodlouse.  Young  as  he  was,  he  pos- 
sessed all  the  republican  virtues  of  the  poor ;  he  was  sober,  he 
never  wasted  his  time,  he  set  his  face  against  pleasure.  He 
was  waiting.  Nature,  bedde,  had  given  him  the  immense 
advantage  of  a  prepossessing  exterior.  His  calm,  pure  fore- 
head, the  outlines  of  his  placid  yet  expressive  features,  the 
simplicity  of  his  manners,  and  everything  about  him,  told  of 
a  hard-working,  uncomplaining  existence,  of  the  high  personal 
dignity  which  inspires  awe  in  others,  and  of  that  quiet  nobleness 
of  spirit  which  is  equal  to  all  situations.  His  modesty  im- 
pressed those  who  knew  him  with  a  certain  respect.  It  was  a 
solitary  life,  however,  that  he  led  in  the  midst  of  Paris. 
Society  he  saw  only  by  glimpses  during  the  few  minutes  spent 
on  holidays  in  his  employer's  drawing-room. 

In  him,  as  in  most  men  who  lead  such  a  life,  there  were 
astonishing  depths  of  passion,  inward  forces  too  great  to  be 
brought  into  play  by  small  occasions.  His  narrow  means 


24  THE    THIRTEEN. 

compelled  him  to  live  like  an  ascetic,  and  he  subdued  his 
fancies  with  hard  work.  After  growing  pale  over  figures,  he 
sought  relaxation  in  a  dogged  effort  to  acquire  the  wider 
knowledge  so  necessary  to  any  man  that  would  make  his  mark 
in  these  days,  whether  in  business,  at  the  bar,  in  politics  or 
letters.  The  one  reef  in  the  careers  of  these  finer  natures  is 
their  very  honesty.  They  come  across  some  penniless  girl, 
fall  in  love,  and  marry  her,  and  afterward  wear  out  their  lives 
in  the  struggle  for  existence,  with  want  on  the  one  hand,  love 
on  the  other.  Housekeeping  bills  will  extinguish  the  loftiest 
ambition.  Jules  Desmarets  went  straight  ahead  upon  that 
reef. 

One  evening,  at  his  employer's  house,  he  met  a  young  lady 
of  the  rarest  beauty.  Love  rapidly  made  such  havoc  as  a 
passion  can  make  in  a  lonely  and  slighted  heart,  when  an  un- 
happy creature's  affections  have  been  starved,  and  the  fair 
hours  of  youth  consumed  by  continual  work.  So  certain  are 
they  to  love  in  earnest,  so  swiftly  does  their  whole  being 
centre  itself  upon  the  woman  to  whom  they  are  attracted, 
that  when  she  is  present  they  are  conscious  of  exquisite  sensa- 
tions, in  none  of  which  she  shares.  This  is  the  most  flattering 
form  of  egoism  for  the  woman  who  can  see,  beneath  the  ap- 
parent immobility  of  passion,  the  feeling  stirred  in  depths  so 
remote  that  it  is  long  before  it  reappears  at  the  human  surface. 
Such  unfortunates  as  these  arc  anchorites  in  the  heart  of  Paris; 
they  know  all  the  joys  of  anchorites ;  sometimes,  too,  they 
may  yield  to  their  temptations ;  but  it  still  more  frequently 
happens  that  they  are  thwarted,  betrayed,  and  misinterpreted  ; 
and  only  very  seldom  are  they  permitted  to  gather  the  sweet 
fruits  of  the  love  that  seems  to  them  like  a  power  dropped 
down  from  heaven. 

-  A  smile  from  his  wife,  a  mere  modulation  of  her  voice,  was 
enough  to  gives  Jules  Desmarets  a  conception  of  the  infinite 
of  love.  Happily  the  concentrated  fire  of  passion  within  re- 
vealed itself  artlessly  to  the  woman  for  whom  it  burned. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  25 

And  these  two  human  creatures  loved  each  other  devoutly. 
To  sum  up  all  in  a  few  words,  they  took  each  other  by  the 
hand  without  a  blush,  and  went  through  the  world  together  as 
two  children,  brother  and  sister,  might  pass  through  a  crowd 
that  makes  way  admiringly  for  them. 

The  young  lady  was  in  the  odious  position  in  which  selfish- 
ness places  some  children  at  their  birth.  She  had  no  recog- 
nized status;  her  name,  Clemence,  and  her  age  were  attested, 
not  by  a  certificate  of  birth,  but  by  a  declaration  made  before 
a  notary.  As  to  her  fortune,  it  was  trifling.  Jules  Desmarets, 
hearing  these  bad  tidings,  was  the  happiest  of  men.  If 
Cle'mence  had  belonged  to  some  wealthy  family,  he  would 
have  despaired  ;  but  she  was  a  poor  love-child,  the  offspring  of 
a  dark,  illicit  passion.  They  were  married.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  a  series  of  pieces  of  good  fortune  for  Jules. 
Everybody  envied  him  his  luck ;  jealous  tongues  alleged  that 
he  succeeded  by  sheer  good  fortune,  and  left  his  merits  and 
ability  out  of  account. 

Clemence's  mother,  nominally  her  godmother,  bade  Jules 
purchase  a  stockbroker's  connection  a  few  days  after  the 
wedding,  promising  to  secure  all  the  necessary  capital.  Such 
connections  were  still  to  be  bought  at  moderate  prices.  On 
the  great  lady's  recommendation,  a  wealthy  capitalist  made 
proposals  on  the  most  favorable  terms  to  Jules  Desmarets 
that  evening  in  the  stockbroker's  own  drawing-room,  lent 
him  money  enough  to  exploit  his  business,  and  by  the  next 
day  the  fortunate  clerk  had  bought  his  employer's  connection. 

In  four  years  Jules  Desmarets  was  one  of  the  wealthiest 
members  of  his  fraternity.  Important  clients  had  been  added 
to  the  number  of  those  left  him  by  his  predecessor.  He 
inspired  unbounded  confidence ;  and  from  the  manner  in 
which  business  came  to  him,  it  was  impossible  but  that  he 
should  recognize  some  occult  influence  due  to  his  wife's  mother, 
or,  as  he  believed,  to  the  mysterious  protection  of  Providence. 

Three  years  after  the  marriage  Clemence  lost  her  godmother. 


26  THE    THIRTEEN. 

By  that  time  M.  Jules,  so  called  to  distinguish  him  from  his 
elder  brother,  whom  he  had  established  in  Paris  as  a  notary, 
was  in  receipt  of  an  income  of  two  hundred  thousand  livres. 
There  was  not  such  another  happy  couple  in  Paris.  A  five 
years'  course  of  such  unwonted  love  had  been  troubled  but 
once  by  a  slander,  for  which  M.  Jules  took  a  single  vengeance. 
One  of  his  old  associates  said  that  M.  Jules  owed  his  success 
to  his  wife,  and  that  influence  in  high  places  had  been  dearly 
bought.  The  inventor  of  the  slander  was  killed  in  the  duel 
that  ensued.  A  passionate  love  so  deeply  rooted  that  it  stood 
the  test  of  marriage  was  much  admired  in  society,  though 
some  women  were  displeased  by  it.  It  was  pretty  to  see  them 
together :  they  were  respected,  and  made  much  of  on  all 
sides.  M.  and  Mme.  Jules  were  really  popular,  perhaps 
because  there  is  no  pleasanter  sight  than  happy  love ;  but  they 
never  stayed  long  in  crowded  rooms,  and  escaped  to  their 
nest  as  soon  as  they  could,  like  two  strayed  doves. 

The  nest,  however,  was  a  fine  large  house  in  the  Rue  de 
Menars,  in  which  artistic  feeling  tempered  the  luxury  which 
the  city  man  is  always  supposed  to  display.  Here,  also,  M. 
and  Mme.  Jules  entertained  splendidly.  Social  duties  were 
somewhat  irksome  to  them  ;  but,  nevertheless,  Jules  Desmarets 
submitted  to  such  exactions,  knowing  that  sooner  or  later  a 
family  will  need  acquaintances.  He  and  his  wife  lived  like 
plants  in  a  hothouse  in  a  stormy  world.  With  very  natural 
delicacy,  Jules  carefully  kept  the  slander  from  his  wife's 
knowledge  as  well  as  the  death  of  the  man  that  had  almost 
troubled  their  felicity. 

Mme.  Jules,  with  her  artistic  temper  and  refinement,  had 
inclinations  toward  luxury.  In  spite  of  the  terrible  lesson  of 
the  duel,  there  were  incautious  women  to  hint  in  whispers  that 
Mme.  Jules  must  often  be  pinched  for  money.  Her  husband 
allowed  her  twenty  thousand  francs  for  her  dress  and  pocket- 
money,  but  this  could  not  possibly  be  enough,  they  said,  for 
her  expenses.  And,  indeed,  she  was  often  more  daintly  dressed 


7Y/A    THIRTEEN.  27 

in  her  own  home  than  in  other  people's  houses.  She  only 
cared  to  adorn  herself  for  her  husband's  eyes,  trying  in  this  way 
to  prove  to  him  that  for  her  he  was  all  the  world.  This  was  love 
indeed,  pure  love,  and  more  than  this,  it  was  happy  as  clandes- 
tine love  sanctioned  by  the  world  can  be.  M.  Jules  was 
still  his  wife's  lover,  and  more  in  love  every  day.  Every- 
thing in  his  wife,  even  her  caprices,  made  him  happy.  When 
she  had  no  new  fancy  to  gratify,  he  felt  as  much  disturbed  as 
if  this  had  been  a  symptom 'of  bad  health. 

It  was  against  this  passion  that  Auguste  de  Maulincour,  for 
his  misfortune,  had  dashed  himself.  He  loved  Madame  (Jlem- 
ence  Jules  to  distraction.  And  yet  even  with  a  supreme 
passion  in  his  heart  he  was  not  ridiculous,  and  he  lived  the 
regular  garrison  life,  yet  even  with  a  glass  of  champagne  in 
his  hand  he  wore  an  abstracted  air.  His  was  the  quiet  scorn 
of  existence,  the  clouded  countenance  worn  alike  on  various 
pretexts  by  jaded  spirits,  by  men  but  little  satisfied  with  the 
hollowness  of  their  lives,  and  by  the  victims  of  pulmonary 
disease  or  heart  troubles.  A  hopeless  love  or  a  distaste  for 
existence  constitutes  a  sort  of  social  position  nowadays. 

To  take  a  queen's  heart  by  storm  were  perhaps  a  more  hope- 
ful enterprise  than  a  madly  conceived  passion  for  a  woman 
happily  married.  Auguste  de  Maulincour  had  sufficient  ex- 
cuse for  his  gravity  and  dejection.  A  queen  has  always  the 
vanity  of  her  power  ;  her  height  above  her  lover  places  her 
at  a  disadvantage ;  but  a  well-principled  bourgeoise,  like  a 
hedgehog  or  an  oyster,  is  encompassed  about  with  awkward 
defenses. 

At  this  particular  moment  Auguste  stood  near  his  unde- 
clared lady.  She.  certainly,  was  incapable  of  carrying  on  a 
double  intrigue.  There  sat  Mme.  Jules  in  childlike  com- 
posure, the  least  guileful  of  women,  gentle,  full  of  queenly 
serenity.  What  depths  can  there  be  in  human  nature?  The 
baron,  before  addressing  her,  kept  his  eyes  on  husband  and 
wife  in  turn.  What  reflections  did  he  not  make  !  In  a  minute's 


28  THE    THIRTEEN. 

space  he  recomposed  a  second  version  of  Young's  "  Night 
Thoughts."  And  yet — the  rooms  were  filled  with  dance 
music,  and  the  light  of  hundreds  of  wax-tapers  streamed  down 
upon  them.  It  was  a  banker's  ball,  one  of  those  insolent 
fetes  by  which  the  world  of  dull  gold  attempted  to  rival  that 
other  world  of  gilded  rank  and  ormolu,  the  world  where  the 
high-born  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  was  laughing  yet,  all  un- 
conscious that  a  day  was  approaching  when  capitalists  would 
invade  the  Luxembourg  and  seat  a  king  on  the  throne.  Con- 
spiracy used  to  dance  in  those  days,  giving  as  little  thought  to 
future  bankruptcies  of  Power  as  to  failures  ahead  in  the  finan- 
cial world.  M.  le  Baron  de  Nucingen's  gilded  salons  wore 
that  look  of  animation  which  a  fete  in  Paris  is  wont  to  wear ; 
there  is  gayety,  at  any  rate,  on  the  surface.  The  wit  of  the 
cleverer  men  infects  the  fools,  while  the  beaming  expression 
characteristic  of  the  latter  spreads  over  the  countenances  of 
their  superiors  in  intellect ;  and  the  whole  room  is  brightened 
by  the  exchange.  But  gayety  in  Paris  is  always  a  little  like  a 
display  of'fireworks  ;  pleasure,  coquetry,  and  wit  all  coruscate, 
and  then  die  out  like  spent  rockets.  To-morrow  morning, 
wit,  coquetry,  and  pleasure  are  put  off  and  forgotten. 

"  Heigho  !  "  thought  Auguste,  as  he  came  to  a  conclusion, 
"are  women  really  after  all  as  the  vidame  sees  them?  Cer- 
tain it  is -that  of  all  the  women  dancing  here  to-night,  not  one 
seems  so  irreproachable  as  Madame  Jules.  And  Madame  Jules 
goes  to  the  Rue  Soly  !  " 

The  Rue  Soly  was  like  a  disease,  the  mere  word  made  his 
heart  contract. 

"  Do  you  never  dance,  madame  ?  "  he  began. 

"  This  is  the  third  time  that  you  have  asked  me  that  ques- 
tion this  winter,"  she  answered,  smiling. 

"But  perhaps  you  have  never  given  me  an  answer." 

"That  is  true." 

"  I  knew  quite  well  that  you  were  false,  like  all  women — 

Mme.  Jules  laughed  again. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  29 

"  Listen  to  me,  monsieur.  If  I  told  you  my  real  reason  for 
not  dancing,  it  would  seem  ridiculous  to  you.  There  is  no 
insincerity,  I  think,  in  declining  to  give  private  reasons  at 
which  people  usually  laugh." 

"Any  confidence,  madame,  implies  a  degree  of  friendship 
of  which  I,  no  doubt,  am  unworthy.  But  it  is  impossible  that 
you  should  have  any  but  noble  secrets,  and  can  you  think  me 
capable  of  irreverent  jesting?" 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "You,  like  the  rest  of  men,  laugh  at 
our  purest  feelings  and  misconstrue  them.  Beside,  I  have  no 
secrets.  I  have  a  right  to  love  my  husband  before  all  the 
world  ;  I  am  proud  of  it,  I  tell  you  ;  and  if  you  laugh  at  me 
when  I  say  that  I  never  dance  with  any  one  else,  I  shall  have 
the  worst  opinion  of  your  heart." 

"  Have  you  never  danced  with  any  one  but  your  husband 
since  your  marriage?" 

"  No,  monsieur.  I  have  leaned  on  no  other  arm,  no  one 
else  has  come  very  close  to  me." 

11  Has  not  your  doctor  so  much  as  felt  your  pulse?" 

"Ah,  well,  now  you  are  laughing." 

"  No,  madame,  I  admire   you  because  I  can  understand. 
But  you  suffer  others  to  hear  your  voice,  to  see  you,  to — 
In  short,  you  permit  our  eyes  to  rest  admiringly  on  you — 

"Ah,  these  things  trouble  me,"  she  broke  in.  "  If  it  were 
possible  for  husband  and  wife  to  live  like  lover  and  mistress, 
I  would  have  it  so  ;  for  in  that  case " 

"  In  that  case,  how  came  you  to  be  out,  on  foot  and  dis- 
guised, a  few  hours  ago,  in  the  Rue  Soly  ?  " 

"  Where  is  the  Rue  Soly?"  asked  she,  not  a  trace  of  emo- 
tion in  her  clear  voice,  not  the  faintest  quiver  in  her  features. 
She  did  not  redden,  she  was  quite  composed. 

''  What  !  You  did  not  go  up  the  stairs  to  the  third  floor  in 
a  house  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  des  Vieux-Augustins  and  the 
Rue  Soly?  You  had  not  a  cab  waiting  for  you  ten  paces 
away?  and  you  did  not  return  to  a  store  in  the  Rue  de  Rich- 


30  THE    THIRTEEN. 

elieu,  where   you  chose  the  feathers  in   your  hair  at  this  mo- 
ment?" 

"I  did  not  leave  my  house  this  evening."  She  told  the 
lie  with  an  imperturbable  laughing  face  ;  she  fanned  herself  as 
she  spoke ;  but  any  one  who  could  have  laid  a  hand  on  her 
girdle  at  the  back,  might  perhaps  have  felt  that  it  was  damp. 
Auguste  bethought  himself  of  the  vidame's  teaching. 

"Then  it  was  some  one  extraordinarily  like  you,"  he  re- 
joined with  an  air  of  .belief. 

"  Sir,"  said  she,  "  if  you  are  capable  of  following  a  woman 
about  to  detect  her  secrets,  you  will  permit  me  to  tell  you  that 
such  a  thing  is  wrong,  very  wrong,  and  I  do  you  the  honor 
of  declining  to  believe  it  of  you." 

The  baron  turned  away,  took  up  his  position  before  the 
hearth,  and  seemed  thoughtful.  He  bent  his  head,  but  his 
eyes  were  fixed  stealthily  upon  Mme.  Jules.  She  had  forgotten 
the  mirrors  on  the  walls,  and  glanced  toward  him  two  or  three 
times  with  an  evident  dread  in  her  eyes.  Then  she  beckoned 
to  her  husband,  laid  a  hand  upon  his  arm,  and  rose  to  go 
through  the  rooms.  As  she  passed  M.  de  Maulincour,  who 
was  talking  with  a  friend,  he  said  aloud,  as  if  in  answer  to  a 
question — 

"  A  woman  that  certainly  will  not  sleep  quietly  to- 
night  " 

Mme.  Jules  stopped,  flung  him  a  crushing,  disdainful  glance, 
and  walked  away,  all  unaware  that  one  more  such  glance,  if 
her  husband  chanced  to  see  it,  would  imperil  the  happiness 
and  the  lives  of  two  men. 

Auguste,  consumed  with  rage  smouldering  in  the  depths  of 
his  squl,  soon  afterward  left  the  room,  vowing  to  get  to  the 
bottom  of  this  intrigue.  He  looked  around  for  Mme.  Jules 
before  he  went,  but  she  had  disappeared. 

Here  were  the  elements  of  a  tragedy  suddenly  put  into  a 
young  head,  an  eminently  romantic  head,  as  is  generally  the 
case  with  those  who  have  not  realized  their  dreamed-of  love 


THE    THIRTEEN.  31 

to  the  full.  He  adored  Mme.  Jules  in  a  hew  aspect ;  he  loved 
her  with  the  fury  of  jealousy,  with  the  agoni/ed  frenzy  of  de- 
spair. The  woman  was  false  to  her  husband  ;  she  had  come 
down  to  the  ordinary  level.  Auguste  might  give  himself  up 
to  all  the  felicity  of  success,  imagination  opened  out  for  him 
the  vast  field  of  the  transports  of  possession.  In  short,  if  he 
had  lost  an  angel,  ho  had  found  the  most  tantalizing  of  devils. 
He  lay  down  to  build  castles  in  the  air,  and  to  justify  Mine. 
Jules.  Some  errand  of  charity  had  brought  her  there,  he  told 
himself,  but  he  did  not  believe  it.  He  made  up  his  mind  to 
devote  himself  entirely  to  the  investigation  of  the  causes  and 
motives  involved  in  this  mysteriously  hidden  knot.  It  was  a 
romance  to  read  ;  or  better,  it  was  a  drama  to  act,  and  he  was 
cast  for  a  part  in  it. 

It  is  a  very  fine  thing  to  play  the  detective  for  one's  own 
ends  and  for  passion's  sake.  Is  it  not  an  honest  man's  chance 
of  enjoying  the  amusements  of  the  thief?  Still,  you  must  be 
prepared  to  boil  with  helpless  rage,  to  growl  with  impatience, 
to  stand  in  mud  till  your  feet  are  frozen,  to  shiver  and  burn 
and  choke  down  false  hopes.  You  must  follow  up  any  indi- 
cation to  an  end  unknown  ;  and  miss  your  chance,  storm, 
improvise  lamentations  and  dithyrambs  for  your  own  benefit, 
and  utter  insensate  exclamations  before  some  harmless  passer- 
by, who  stares  back  at  you  in  amazement.  You  take  to  your 
heels  and  overturn  good  souls  with  their  apple-baskets,  you 
wait  and  hang  about  under  a  window,  you  make  guesses  by 
the  running  hundred.  Still  it  is  sport,  and  Parisian  sport ; 
sport  with  all  its  accessories  save  dogs,  and  guns,  and  tally-ho. 
Nothing,  except  some  moments  in  the  gambler's  life,  can 
compare  with  it.  A  man's  heart  must  needs  be  swelling  with 
love  and  revenge  before  he  will  lie  in  ambush  ready  to  spring 
like  a  tiger  on  his  prey  :  before  he  can  find  enjoyment  in 
watching  all  that  goes  on  in  the  quarter  ;  for  interest  of  many 
kinds  abounds  in  Paris  without  the  added  pleasure  of  stalking 
srame.  How  should  one  soul  suffice  a  man  for  all  this?  What 


32  THE    THIRTEEN. 

is  it  but  a  life  made  up  of  a  thousand  passions,  a  thousand 
feelings,  and  thoughts? 

Auguste  de  Maulincour  flung  himself  heart  and  soul  into 
this  feverish  life,  because  he  felt  all  its  troubles  and  joys.  He 
went  about  Paris  in  disguise ;  he  watched  every  corner  of  the 
Rue  Pagevin  and  the  Rue  des  Vieux-Augustins.  He  ran  like 
a  lamplighter  from  the  Rue  de  Menars  to  the  Rue  Soly,  and 
back  again  from  the  Rue  Soly  to  the  Rue  de  Menars,  all 
unconscious  of  the  punishment  or  the  reward  in  store  for  so 
many  pains,  such  measures,  such  shifts  !  And  even  so,  he  had 
not  yet  reached  the  degree  of  impatience  which  gnaws  the 
vitals  and  brings  the  sweat  to  a  man's  brow ;  he  hung  about 
in  hope.  It  occurred  to  him  that  Mme.  Jules  would  scarcely 
risk  another  visit  for  some  few  days  after  detection.  So  he 
devoted  those  first  few  days  to  an  initiation  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  street.  Being  but  a  novice  in  the  craft,  he  did  not 
dare  to  go  to  the  house  itself  and  question  the  janitor  and  the 
shoemaker ;  but  he  had  hopes  of  securing  a  post  of  observation 
in  rooms  exactly  opposite  those  inscrutable  apartments.  He 
made  a  careful  survey  of  the  ground ;  he  was  trying  to  recon- 
cile caution  with  impatience,  his  great  love,  and  the  inscruta- 
ble secret. 

By  the  beginning  of  March  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his  pre- 
parations for  making  a  great  decisive  move,  when  official 
duties  summoned  him  from  his  chessboard  one  afternoon  about 
four  o'clock,  after  an  assiduous  course  of  sentry-duty,  for 
which  he  was  not  a  whit  the  wiser.  In  the  Rue  Coquilliere 
he  was  caught  by  one  of  the  heavy  showers  which  swell  the 
stream  in  the  gutters  in  a  moment,  while  every  drop  falling 
into  the  roadside  puddles  raises  a  bell-shaped  splash.  A  foot- 
passenger  in  such  a  predicament  is  driven  to  take  refuge  in  a 
store  or  cafe  if  he  can  afford  to  pay  for  shelter ;  or,  at  urgent 
need,  to  hurry  into  some  entry,  the  asylum  of  the  poor  and 
shabbily  dressed.  How  is  it  that  as  yet  no  French  painter 
has  tried  to  give  us  that  characteristic  group,  a  crowd  of  Par- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  33 

isians  weather-bound  under  an  archway  ?  Where  will  you  find 
better  material  fora  picture? 

To  begin  with,  is  there  not  the  pensive  or  philosophical 
pedestrian  who  finds  a  pleasure  in  watching  the  slantwise 
streaks  of  rain  in  the  air  against  the  gray  background  of  sky — a 
fine  chased  work  something  like  the  whimsical  shapes  taken  by 
spun  glass?  Or  he  looks  up  at  the  whirlpools  of  white  water, 
blown  by  the  wind  like  a  luminous  dust  over  the  house-roofs, 
or  at  the  fitful  discharges  of  the  wet,  foaming  gutter-pipes. 
There  are,  in  fact,  a  thousand  nothings  to  wonder  at,  and  the 
idlers  are  studying  them  with  keen  relish,  although  the  owner 
of  the  premises  treats  them  to  occasional  thumps  from  the 
broom-handle  while  pretending  to  be  sweeping  out  the  gate- 
way. 

There  is  the  chatty  person  who  grumbles  and  talks  with  the 
porter's  wife,  while  she  rests  on  her  broom  as  a  grenadier 
leans  on  his  gun ;  there  is  the  poverty-stricken  individual 
glued  fantastically  to  the  wall — he  has  nothing  to  dread  from 
such  contact;  for  his  rags,  they  are  already  so  well  acquainted 
with  the  street ;  there  is  the  man  of  education  who  studies, 
spells  out,  or  even  reads  the  advertisements,  and  never  gets 
to  the  end  of  them ;  there  is  the  humorous  person  who  laughs 
at  the  mud-bedraggled  women,  and  makes  eyes  at  the  people 
in  the  windows  opposite  ;  there  is  the  mute  refugee  that  scans 
every  casement  on  every  floor,  and  the  working  man  or  woman 
with  a  mallet  or  a  bundle,  as  the  case  may  be,  translating  the 
shower  into  probable  losses  or  gains.  Then  there  is  the 
amiable  man,  who  bounces  in  like  a  bombshell  with  an  "Oh! 
what  weather,  gentlemen  !  "  and  raises  his  h:it  to  the  com- 
pany; and,  finally,  there  is  your  true  Parisian  bourgeois,  a 
weatherwise  citizen  who  never  comes  out  without  his  umbrella; 
he  knew  beforehand  that  it  was  going  to  rain,  but  he  came 
out  in  spite  of  his  wife's  advice,  and  now  he  is  sitting  in  the 
porter's  chair. 

Each  member  of  this  chance  assembled  group  watches  the 
3 


34  THE    THIRTEEN. 

sky  in  his  own  characteristic  fashion,  and  then  skips  away  for 
fear  of  splashing  his  boots,  or  goes  because  he  is  in  a  hurry 
and  sees  other  citizens  walking  past  in  spite  of  wind  and 
weather,  or  because  the  courtyard  is  damp  and  like  to  give 
you  your  death  of  cold — the  selvedge,  as  the  saying  goes, 
being  worse  than  the  cloth.  Every  one  has  his  own  reasons 
for  going,  until  no  one  is  left  but  the  prudent  pedestrian,  who 
waits  to  see  a  few  blue  chinks  among  the  clouds  before  he 
goes  on  his  way. 

M.  de  Maulincour,  therefore,  took  refuge  with  a  tribe  of 
foot-passengers  under  the  porch  of  an  old-fashioned  house 
with  a  courtyard  not  unlike  a  gigantic  chimney-shaft.  There 
were  so  many  stories  rising  to  a  height  on  all  sides,  and  the 
four  plastered  walls,  covered  with  greenish  stains  and  saltpetre 
ooze,  were  traversed  by  such  a  multitude  of  gutters  and  spouts, 
that  they  would  have  put  you  in  mind  of  the  cascades  of  St. 
Cloud.  From  every  direction  came  the  sound  of  falling 
water ;  it  foamed,  splashed,  and  gurgled  ;  it  gushed  forth  in 
streams,  or  black,  or  white,  or  blue,  or  green  ;  it  hissed  and 
gathered  volume  under  the  broom  wielded  by  the  janitor's 
wife,  a  toothless  crone  of  great  experience  in  storms,  who 
seemed  to  bless  the  waters  as  she  swept  down  a  host  of  odds  and 
ends  into  the  street.  A  curious  inventory  of  the  rubbish  would 
have  told  you  a  good  deal  about  the  lives  and  habits  of  the 
lodgers  on  every  floor.  There  were  tea-leaves,  cuttings  of 
chintz,  discolored  and  spoilt  petals  of  artificial  flowers,  vege- 
table refuse,  paper,  and  scraps  of  metal.  Every  stroke  of  the 
old  woman's  broom  laid  bare  the  heart  of  the  gutter,  that 
black  channel  paved  with  chessboard  squares,  on  which  every 
janitor  wages  desperate  war.  The  luckless  lover  gazed  in- 
tently at  this  picture,  one  of  the  many  thousands  which  bust- 
ling Paris  composes  every  day ;  but  he  saw  it  all  with  unseeing 
eyes,  until  he  looked  up  and  found  himself  face  to  face  with  a 
man  that  had  just  come  in. 

This  man,  was,   at   any  rate   to  all   appearance,  a  beggar. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  3d 

Not  a  Parisian  beggar,  that  human  creature  for  which  human 
speech  has  found  no  name  as  yet ;  but  a  novel  type,  a  beggar 
cast  in  some  different  mould,  and  apart  from  .ill  the  associa- 
tions called  up  by  that  word.  The  stranger  was  not  by  any 
means  remarkable  for  that  peculiarly  Parisian  character,  which 
frequently  startles  us  in  those  unfortunates  whom  Charlct  drew, 
and  often  enough  with  a  rare  felicity ;  the  Paris  beggar  with 
the  coarse  face  plastered  with  mud,  the  red  bulbous  nose,  the 
toothless  but  menacing  mouth,  the  eyes  lighted  up  by  a  pro- 
found intelligence  which  seems  out  of  place — a  servile  terrific 
figure.  Some  of  the  impudent  vagabonds  have  mottled, 
chapped,  and  veined  countenances,  rugged  foreheads,  and 
thin,  dirty  locks  that  put  you  in  mind  of  a  worn-out  wig  lying 
in  the  gutter.  Jolly  in  their  degradation  and  degraded  amid 
their  jollity,  debauchery  has  set  its  unmistakable  mark  on 
them,  they  hurl  their  silence  at  you  like  a  reproach,  their  atti- 
tude expresses  appalling  thoughts.  They  are  ruthless,  are 
these  dwellers  between  beggary  and  crime  ;  they  circle  at  a 
safe  distance  round  the  gallows,  steering  clear  of  the  law  in  the 
midst  of  vice,  and  vicious  within  the  bounds  of  law.  While 
they  often  provoke  a  smile,  they  set  you  thinking. 

One,  for  instance,  represents  stunted  civilization  ;  he  com- 
prehends it  all,  thieves'  honor,  patriotism,  and  manhood,  with 
the  perverse  ingenuity  of  the  common  criminal  and  the  sub- 
tlety of  kid-gloved  rascality.  Another  is  resigned  to  his  lot ; 
he  is  pastmaster  in  mimicry,  but  a  dull  creature.  None  of 
them  are  exempt  from  passing  fancies  for  work  and  thrift ; 
but  the  social  machinery  thrusts  them  down  into  their  filth, 
without  caring  to  discover  whether  there  may  not  be  poets, 
or  great  men,  or  brave  men,  or  a  whole  wonderful  organiza- 
tion among  the  beggars  in  the  streets,  those  gypsies  of  Paris. 
Like  all  masses  of  men  who  have  suffered,  the  beggar  tribes 
are  supremely  good  and  superlatively  wicked  ;  they  are  ac- 
customed to  endure  nameless  ills,  and  a  fatal  power  keeps 
them  on  a  level  with  the  mud  of  the  streets.  And  every  one 


36  THE    THIRTEEN. 

of  them  has  a  dream,  a  hope,  a  happiness  of  his  own,  which 
takes  the  shape  of  gambling,  or  the  lottery,  or  drink. 

There  was  nothing  of  this  strange  life  about  the  man  who 
was  propping  himself,  very  much  at  his  ease,  against  the  wall 
opposite  M.  de  Maulincour ;  he  looked  like  a  fancy  portrait 
sketched  by  an  ingenious  artist  on  the  back  of  some  canvas 
returned  to  the  studio. 

He  was  lank  and  lean  ;  his  leaden-hued  visage  revealed 
glacial  depths  of  thought ;  his  ironical  bearing,  and  a  dark 
look,  which  plainly  conveyed  his  claim  to  treat  every  man  as  his 
equal,  dried  up  any  feeling  of  compassion  in  the  hearts  of  the 
curious.  His  complexion  was  a  dingy  white ;  his  wrinkled, 
hairless  head  bore  a  vague  resemblance  to  a  block  of  granite. 
A  few  grizzled,  lank  locks  on  either  side  of  his  face  straggled 
over  the  collar  of  a  filthy  overcoat  buttoned  up  to  the  chin. 
There  was  something  of  a  Voltaire  about  him,  something,  too, 
of  a  Don  Quixote ;  melancholy,  scornful,  sarcastic,  full  of 
philosophical  ideas,  but  half  insane.  Apparently  he  wore  no 
shirt.  His  beard  was  long.  His  shabby  black  cravat  was  so 
slit  and  worn  that  it  left  his  neck  on  exhibition,  and  a  pro- 
tuberant, deeply  furrowed  throat,  on  which  the  thick  veins 
stood  out  like  cords.  There  were  wide,  dark  bruised  circles 
about  his  eyes.  He  must  have  been  at  least  sixty  years  old. 
His  hands  were  white  and  clean.  His  shoes  were  full  of  holes, 
and  trodden  down  at  the  heels.  A  pair  of  much-mended  blue 
trousers,  covered  with  a  kind  of  pale  fluff,  added  to  the  squalor 
of  his  appearance. 

Perhaps  the  man's  wet  clothes  exhaled  a  nauseous  stench ; 
perhaps  at  any  time  he  had  about  him  that  odor  of  poverty 
peculiar  to  Paris  slums— for  slums,  like  offices,  vestries,  and 
hospitals,  have  a  special  smell,  and  a  stale,  rancid,  fetid,  un- 
imaginable reek  it  is.  At  any  rate,  the  man's  neighbors 
edged  away  and  left  him  alone.  He  glanced  round  at  them,  and 
then  at  the  officer;  it  was  an  unmoved,  expressionless  look; 
the  look  for  which  M.  de  Talleyrand  was  so  famous,  a  survey 


THE    THIRTEEN.  37 

made  by  lack-lustre  eyes  with  no  warmth  in  them.  Such  a 
look  is  an  inscrutable  veil  beneath  which  a  strong  mind  can 
hide  deep  feeling,  and  the  most  accurate  calculations  as  to 
men,  affairs,  and  events.  Not  a  wrinkle  deepened  in  his  coun- 
tenance. Mouth  and  forehead  were  alike  impassive,  but  his 
eyes  fell,  and  there  was  something  noble,  almost  tragic,  in 
their  slow  movement.  A  whole  drama  lay  in  that  droop  of  the 
withered  eyelids. 

The  sight  of  this  stoical  face  started  M.  de  Maulincour  upon 
those  musings  that  begin  with  some  commonplace  question 
and  wander  off  into  a  whole  world  of  ideas  before  they  end. 
The  storm  was  over  and  gone.  M.  de  Maulincour  saw  no 
more  of  the  man  than  the  skirts  of  his  overcoat  trailing  on  the 
curb-stone  ;  but  as  he  turned  to  go  he  saw  that  a  letter  had 
just  dropped  at  his  feet,  and  guessed  that  it  belonged  to  the 
stranger,  for  he  had  noticed  that  he  put  a  bandana  hand- 
kerchief back  into  his  pocket.  M.  de  Maulincour  picked  up 
the  letter  to  return  it  to  its  owner,  and  unthinkingly  read  the 
address — 

MOSIEUR  FERRAGUSSE, 

Rue  des  Grands-Augustins,  at  the  corner  of  the 
Rue  Soly. 

PARIS. 
To  MOSIEUR. 

There  was  no  postmark  on  the  letter,  and  at  sight  of  the 
address  M.  de  Maulincour  hesitated  to  return  it ;  for  there  are 
few  passions  which  will  not  turn  base  in  the  long  length. 
Some  presentiment  of  the  opportuneness  of  the  treasure-trove 
crossed  the  baron's  mind.  He  would  keep  the  letter,  and  so 
acquire  a  right  to  enter  the  mysterious  house,  never  doubting 
but  that  the  man  lived  therein.  Even  now  a  suspicion,  vague 
as  the  beginning  of  daylight,  connected  the.  stranger  with 
Mme.  Jules.  Jealous  lovers  will  suppose  anything;  and  it  is 
by  this  very  process  of  supposing  everything  and  selecting  the 


38  THE    THIRTEEN. 

more  probable  conjectures  that  examining  magistrates,  spies, 
lovers,  and  observers  get  at  the  truth  which  they  have  an  in- 
terest in  discovering. 

"  Does  the  letter  belong  to  him?  Is  it  from  Mme.  Jules?" 
His  restless  imagination  flung  a  host  of  questions  to  him  at 
once,  but  at  the  first  words  of  the  letter  he  smiled.  Here  it 
follows  word  for  word  in  the  glory  of  its  artless  phrases;  it 
was  impossible  to  add  anything  to  it,  and  short  of  omitting 
the  letter  itself,  nothing  could  be  taken  away.  It  has  been 
necessary,  however,  to  revise  the  orthography  and  the  punc- 
tuation ;  for  in  the  original  there  are  neither  commas  nor 
stops,  nor  so  much  as  a  note  of  exclamation,  a  fact  that  strikes 
at  the  root  of  the  system  by  which  modern  authors  endeavor 
to  render  the  effect  of  the  great  disasters  of  every  kind  of 
passion : 

"  HENRY  "  (so  it  ran),  "  of  all  the  sacrifices  that  I  have  had 
to  make  for  your  sake,  this  is  the  hardest,  that  I  mayn't  give 
you  news  of  myself.  There  is  a  voice  that  I  must  obey, 
which  tells  me  I  ought  to  let  you  know  all  the  wrong  you've 
done  me.  I  know  beforehand  that  you  are  that  hardened  by 
vice  that  you  will  not  stoop  to  pity  me.  Your  heart  must  be 
deaf  to  all  feeling ;  is  it  not  deaf  to  the  cry  of  nature  ?  Not 
that  it  matters  much.  I  am  bound  to  let  you  know  the 
degree  to  which  you  are  to  blame,  and  the  horror  of  the 
position  in  which  you  have  put  me.  You  knew  how  I  suf- 
fered for  my  first  fall,  Henry,  yet  you  could  bring  me  to  the 
same  pass  again,  and  leave  me  in  my  pain  and  despair.  Yes, 
I  own  I  used  to  think  you  loved  and  respected  me,  and  that 
helped  me  to  bear  up.  And  now  what  is  left  to  me  ?  I  have 
lost  all  that  I  cared  most  about,  all  that  I  lived  for,  parents, 
friends,  and  relations,  and  character,  and  all  through  you.  I 
have  given  up  everything  for  you,  and  now  I  have  nothing 
before  me  but  shame  and  disgrace  and,  I  don't  blush  to  say 
it,  want.  It  only  needed  your  scorn  and  hatred  to  make  my 


THE    THIRTEEN.  39 

misery  complete ;  and  now  I  have  that  as  well,  I  shall  have 
courage  to  carry  out  my  plans.  I  have  made  up  my  mind — 
it's  for  the  credit  of  my  family — I  shall  put  an  end  to  my 
troubles.  You  must  not  think  hardly  of  the  thing  that  I  am 
going  to  do,  Henry.  It  is  wicked,  I  know,  but  I  can't  help 
myself.  No  help,  no  money,  no  sweetheart  to  comfort  me — 
can  I  live?  No,  I  can't.  What  must  be,  must.  So  in  two 
days,  Henry,  two  days  from  now,  your  Ida  will  not  be  worthy 
of  your  respect  ;  but  take  back  the  solemn  promise  I  made 
you,  so  as  I  may  have  an  easy  conscience,  for  I  shall  not  be 
unworthy  of  your  regard.  Oh,  Henry,  my  friend,  for  I 
shall  never  change  to  you,  promise  to  forgive  me  for  the  life 
I'm  going  to  lead.  It  is  love  that  gives  me  courage,  and  it 
is  love  that  will  keep  me  right.  My  heart  will  be  so  full  of 
your  image  that  I  shall  still  be  true  to  you.  I  pray  heaven 
on  my  bended  knees  not  to  punish  you  for  all  the  wrong  you 
have  done,  for  I  feel  that  there  is  only  one  thing  wanting 
among  my  troubles,  and  that  is  the  pain  of  knowing  that  you 
are  unhappy.  In  spite  of  my  plight,  I  will  not  take  any  help 
from  you.  If  you  had  cared  about  me,  I  might  have  taken 
anything  as  coming  from  friendship ;  but  my  soul  rises  up 
against  a  kindness  as  comes  from  pity,  and  I  should  demean 
myself  more  by  taking  it  than  him  that  offered  it.  I  have 
one  favor  to  ask.  I  don't  know  how  long  I  shall  have  to 
stop  with  Mrre.  Meynardie,  but  be  generous  enough  to  keep 
out  of  my  sight  there.  Your  last  two  visits  hurt  me  so  that  it 
was  a  long  time  before  I  got  over  it  ;  but  I  don't  mean  to  go 
into  any  particulars  of  your  behavior  in  that  respect.  You 
hate  me — you  said  so  ;  the  words  are  written  on  my  heart, 
and  freeze  it  with  cold.  Alas  !  just  when  I  want  all  my  cour- 
age, my  wits  desert  me.  Henry  dear,  before  I  put  this  bar 
between  us,  let  me  know  for  the  last  time  that  you  respect  me 
still  ;  write  me,  send  me  an  answer,  say  that  you  respect  me 
if  you  don't  love  me  any  more.  I  shall  always  be  able  to 
look  you  in  the  face,  but  I  don't  ask  for  a  sight  of  you  ;  I  am 


40  THE    THIRTEEN. 

so  weak,  and  I  love  you  so,  that  I  don't  know  what  I  might 
do.  But,  for  pity's  sake,  write  me  a  line  at  once  ;  it  will  give 
me  courage  to  bear  my  misery.  Farewell,  you  have  brought 
all  my  troubles  upon  me,  but  you  are  the  one  friend  that  my 
heart  has  chosen,  and  will  never  forget.  IDA." 

This  young  girl's  life,  her  disappointed  love,  her  ill-starred 
joys,  her  grief,  her  dreadful  resignation  to  her  lot,  the  humble 
poem  summed  up  in  so  few  words,  produced  a  moment's  effect 
upon  M.  de  Maulincour.  He  asked  himself,  as  he  read  the 
obscure  but  essentially  Parisian  tragedy  written  upon  the  soiled 
sheet,  whether  this  Ida  might  not  be  connected  in  some  way 
with  Mme.  Jules  ;  whether  the  assignation  that  he  chanced  to 
witness  that  evening  was  not  some  charitable  effort  on  her 
part.  Could  that  aged,  poverty-stricken  man  be  Ida's  be- 
trayer ?  The  thing  bordered  on  the  marvelous.  Amusing 
himself  in  a  maze  of  involved  and  incompatible  ideas,  the 
baron  reached  the  neighborhood  of  the  Rue  Pagevin  just  in 
time  to  see  a  hack  stop  at  the  end  of  the  Rue  des  Vieux- 
Augustins  nearest  the  Rue  Montmartre.  Every  driver  on  the 
stand  had  something  to  say  to  the  new  arrival. 

"  Can  she  be  in  it  ?"  he  thought. 

His  heart  beat  with  hot,  feverish  throbs.  He  pushed  open 
the  wicket  with  the  tinkling  bell,  but  he  lowered  his  head  as 
he  entered  ;  he  felt  ashamed  of  himself,  a  voice  in  his  inmost 
soul  cried : 

"  Why  meddle  in  this  mystery?" 

At  the  top  of  a  short  flight  of  steps  he  confronted  the  old 
woman. 

"  Monsieur  Ferragus?  " 

"Don't  know  the  name " 

"  What !     Doesn't  Monsieur  Ferragus  live  here?" 

"  No  name  of  the  sort  in  the  house." 

"  But  my  good  woman " 

"  I'm  not  a  'good  woman,'  sir;  I  am  the  portress." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  41 

"  But,  madame,  I  have  a  letter  here  for  Monsieur  Ferra- 
gus." 

"  Oh  !  if  you  have  a  letter,  sir,"  said  she,  with  a  change  of 
tone,  "  that  is  quite  another  thing.  Will  you  just  let  me  see 
it — that  letter?  " 

Auguste  produced  the  folded  sheet.  The  old  woman  shook 
her  head  dubiously  over  it,  hesitated,  and  seemed  on  the 
point  of  leaving  her  lodge  to  acquaint  the  mysterious  Ferra- 
gus  with  this  unexpected  incident.  At  last  she  said  :  "  Very 
well,  go  upstairs,  sir.  You  ought  to  know  your  way  up — 

Without  staying  to  answer  a  remark  winch  the  cunning 
crone  possibly  meant  as  a  trap,  the  young  officer  bounded  up 
the  stairs  and  rang  loudly  at  the  third-floor  door.  His  lover's 
instinct  told  him  :  "She  is  here." 

The  stranger  of  the  archway,  the  "orther"  of  Ida's 
troubles,  answered  the  door  himself,  and  showed  a  clean 
countenance,  a  flowered  gown,  a  pair  of  white  flannel  trousers, 
and  a  neat  pair  of  carpet-slippers.  Mme.  Jules'  face  appeared 
behind  him  in  the  doorway  of  the  inner  room ;  she  grew 
white,  and  dropped  into  a  chair. 

"What  is  the  matter,  madame?"  exclaimed  Auguste,  as 
he  sprang  toward  her. 

But  Ferragus  stretched  out  an  arm  and  stopped  the  young 
man  short  with  such  a  well-delivered  blow  that  Auguste 
reeled  as  if  an  iron  bar  had  struck  him  on  the  chest. 

"Stand  back,  sir!  What  do  you  want  with  us?  You 
have  been  prowling  about  the  quarter  these  five  or  six  days. 
Perhaps  you  are  a  spy  ?  ' ' 

"  Are  you  Monsieur  Ferragus?  "  retorted  the  baron. 

"No,  sir." 

"At  any  rate,  it  is  my  duty  to  return  this  paper  which  you 
dropped  under  an  archway  where  we  both  took  shelter  from 
the  rain." 

As  he  spoke  and  held  out  the  letter,  he  glanced  round  the 
room  in  spite  of  himself.  Ferragus'  room  was  well  but 


42  THE   THIRTEEN. 

plainly  furnished.  There  was  a  fire  in  the  grate.  A  table 
was  set,  more  sumptuously  than  the  man's  apparent  position 
and  the  low  rent  of  the  house  seemed  to  warrant.  And  lastly, 
he  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  heap  of  gold  coins  on  a  console  just 
inside  the  next  room,  and  heard  a  sound  from  thence  which 
could  only  be  a  woman's  sobbing. 

"The  letter  is  mine,  thank  you,"  said  the  stranger,  turning 
round  in  a  way  intended  to  convey  the  hint  that  the  baron 
had  better  go,  and  that  at  once. 

Too  inquisitive  to  notice  that  he  himself  was  being  sub- 
mitted to  a  thorough  scrutiny,  Auguste  did  not  see  the  semi- 
magnetic  glances,  the  devouring  gaze  which  the  stranger 
turned  upon  him.  If  he  had  met  those  basilisk  eyes,  he 
would  have  seen  his  danger,  but  he  was  too  violently  in  love 
to  think  of  himself.  He  raised  his  hat,  went  downstairs,  and 
back  to  his  own  home.  What  could  a  meeting  of  three  such 
persons  as  Ida,  Ferragus,  and  Mme.  Jules  mean  ?  He  might 
as  well  have  taken  up  a  Chinese  puzzle,  and  tried  to  fit  the 
odd-shaped  bits  of  wood  together  without  a  clue. 

But  Mme.  Jules  had  seen  him  ;  Mme.  Jules  went  to  the 
house ;  Mme.  Jules  had  lied  to  him.  Next  day  he  would  call 
upon  her ;  she  would  not  dare  to  refuse  to  see  him  ;  he  was 
now  her  accomplice  ;  he  was  hand  and  foot  in  this  shady 
intrigue.  Already  he  began  to  play  the  sultan,  and  thought 
how  he  would  summon  Mme.  Jules  to  deliver  up  all  her  secrets. 

Paris  was  afflicted  in  those  days  with  a  rage  for  building. 
If  Paris  is  a  monster,  it  is  assuredly  of  all  monsters  the  most 
subject  to  sudden  rage.  The  city  takes  up  with  a  thousand 
whimsies.  Sometimes  Paris  begins  to  build  like  some  great 
lord  with  a  passion  for  bricks  and  mortar ;  then  the  trowel  is 
dropped  in  an  attack  of  military  fever,  every  one  turns  out  in 
a  National  Guard's  uniform,  and  goes  through  the  drill  and 
smokes  cigars,  but  the  fit  does  not  last ;  martial  exercises  are 
suddenly  abandoned,  and  the  cigar  is  thrown  away.  Then 
Paris  begins  to  feel  low,  becomes  insolvent,  sells  its  effects  in 


THE    THIRTEEN.  43 

the  Place  du  Chatelet,  and  files  its  petition ;  but  in  a  few 
days  all  is  straight  again,  and  the  city  puts  on  festival  array 
and  dances.  One  day  the  city  fills  hands  and  mouth  with 
barley-sugar,  yesterday  it  bought  "  Papier  Weynen  ;"  to-day 
the  monster  has  the  toothache,  and  plasters  every  wall  with 
advertisements  of  Alexipharmaqucs,  and  to-morrow  it  will  lay 
in  a  store  of  cough  lozenges.  Paris  has  the  craze  of  the 
season  or  of  the  month  as  well  as  the  rage  of  the  day  ;  and  at 
this  particular  time  everybody  was  building  or  pulling  down 
something.  What  they  built  or  pulled  down  no  one  knows  to 
this  day,  but  there  was  scarce  a  street  in  which  you  did  not  see 
erections  of  scaffolding,  poles,  planks,  and  cross-bars  lashed 
together  at  every  story.  The  fragile  structures,  covered  with 
white  plaster  dust,  quivered  under  the  tread  of  the  Limousin 
bricklayers  and  shook  with  the  vibrations  of  every  passing 
carriage  in  spite  of  the  protection  of  wooden  hoardings,  which 
people  are  bound  to  erect  around  the  monumental  buildings 
that  never  rise  above  their  foundations.  There  is  a  nautical 
suggestion  about  the  mast-like  poles  and  ladders  and  rigging 
and  the  shouts  of  the  bricklayers. 

One  of  these  temporary  erections  stood  not  a  dozen  paces 
away  from  the  Hotel  Maulincour,  in  front  of  a  house  that  was 
being  built  of  blocks  of  free-stone.  Next  day,  just  as  the 
Baron  de  Maulincour's  cab  passed  by  the  scaffolding  on  the 
way  to  Mine.  Jules,  a  block  two  feet  square  slipped  from  its 
rope-cradle  at  the  top  of  the  pole,  turned  a  somersault,  fell, 
and  killed  the  manservant  at  the  back  of  the  vehicle.  A  cry 
of  terror  shook  the  scaffolding  and  the  bricklayers.  One  of 
the  two,  in  peril  of  his  neck,  could  scarcely  cling  to  the  pole  ; 
it  seemed  that  the  block  struck  him  in  passing.  A  crowd 
quickly  gathered.  The  men  came  down  in  a  body,  with 
shouts  and  oaths,  declaring  that  M.  de  Maulincour's  cab  had 
shaken  their  crane.  Two  inches  more,  and  the  stone  would 
have  fallen  on  the  baron's  head.  It  was  an  event  in  the 
quarter.  It  got  into  the  newspapers. 


44  THE    THIRTEEN. 

M.  de  Maulincour,  sure  that  he  had  touched  nothing, 
brought  an  action  for  damages.  The  law  stepped  in.  It 
turned  out  upon  inquiry  that  a  boy  with  a  wooden  lath  had 
mounted  guard  to  warn  passengers  to  give  the  building  a  wide 
berth,  and  with  that  the  affair  came  to  an  end.  M.  de  Maulin- 
cour must  even  put  up  with  the  loss  of  his  manservant  and  the 
fright  that  he  had  had.  He  kept  his  bed  for  several  days,  for 
he  had  been  bruised  by  the  breakage  of  the  cab,  and  he  was 
feverish  after  the  shock  to  his  nerves.  So  there  was  no  visit 
paid  to  Mme.  Jules. 

Ten  days  later,  when  he  went  out  of  doors  for  the  first  time, 
he  drove  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  in  the  now  repaired  cab. 
He  turned  down  the  Rue  de  Bourgogne,  and  had  reached  the 
sewer  just  opposite  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  when  the  axle 
snapped  in  the  middle.  The  baron  was  driving  so  fast  that 
the  two  wheels  swerved  and  met  with  a  shock  that  must  have 
fractured  his  skull  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  hood  of  the 
vehicle,  and,  as  it  was,  he  sustained  serious  injury  to  the  ribs. 
So  for  the  second  time  in  ten  days  he  was  brought  home  more 
dead  than  alive  to  the  weeping  dowager. 

This  second  accident  aroused  his  suspicions.  He  thought, 
vaguely  however,  of  Mme.  Jules  and  Ferragus ;  and  by  way 
of  clearing  up  his  suspicions,  he  had  the  broken  axle  brought 
into  his  bedroom,  and  sent  for  his  coach-builder.  The  man  in- 
spected the  fracture,  and  proved  two  things  to  M.  Maulincour' s 
mind.  First,  that  the  axle  never  came  from  his  establishment, 
for  he  made  a  practice  of  cutting  his  initials  roughly  on  every 
one  that  he  supplied.  How  this  axle  had  been  exchanged 
for  the  previous  one  he  was  at  a  loss  to  explain.  And  sec- 
ondly, he  found  that  there  was  a  very  ingeniously  contrived 
flaw  in  the  iron  bar,  a  kind  of  cavity  made  by  a  blowpipe 
while  the  metal  was  hot. 

"Eh!  Monsieur  le  Baron,  a  man  had  need  to  be  pretty 
clever  to  turn  out  an  axle-tree  on  that  pattern  ;  you  could 
swear  it  was  natural " 


THE    THIRTEEN.  45 

M.  de  Maulincour  asked  the  man  to  keep  his  own  counsel, 
and  considered  that  he  had  had  a  sufficient  warning.  The 
two  attempts  on  his  life  had  been  plotted  with  a  skill  which 
showed  that  his  were  no  common  enemies. 

"It  is  a  war  of  extermination,"  said  he,  turning  restlessly 
on  his  bed,  "a  warfare  of  savages,  ambushes,  and  treachery, 
a  war  declared  in  the  name  of  Madame  Jules.  J;i  whose  hands 
is  she  ?  And  what  power  can  this  Ferragus  wield  ?  " 

M.  de  Maulincour,  brave  man  and  soldier  though  he  was, 
could  not  help  shivering  when  all  was  done  and  said.  Among 
the  thoughts  that  beset  him,  there  was  one  which  found  him 
defenseless  and  afraid.  How  if  these  mysterious  enemies  of 
his  should  resort  next  to  poison  ?  Terror,  exaggerated  by 
fever  and  low  diet,  got  the  better  of  him  in  his  weak  condi- 
tion. He  sent  for  an  old  attached  servant  of  his  grand- 
mother's, a  woman  who  loved  him  with  that  almost  motherly 
affection  through  which  an  ordinary  nature  reaches  the  sub- 
lime. Without  telling  her  all  that  was  in  his  mind,  he  bade 
her  buy  all  necessary  articles  of  food  for  him,  secretly,  and 
every  day  at  a  fresh  place ;  and  at  the  same  time,  he  warned 
her  to  keep  everything  under  lock  and  key,  and  to  allow  no 
one  whatsoever  to  be  present  while  she  prepared  his  meals. 
In  short,  he  took  the  most  minute  precautions  against  this 
kind  of  death.  He  was  lying  ill  in  bed  ;  he  had  therefore 
full  leisure  to  consider  his  best  way  of  defending  himself,  and 
love  of  life  is  the  only  craving  sufficiently  clairvoyant  to  allow 
human  egoism  to  forget  nothing.  But  the  luckless  patient 
had  himself  poisoned  his  own  life  with  dread.  Every  hour 
was  overshadowed  by  a  gloomy  suspicion  that  he  could  not 
throw  off.  Still,  the  two  lessons  in  murder  had  taught  him 
one  qualification  indispensable  to  a  politic  man;  he  under- 
stood how  greatly  dissimulation  is  needed  in  the  complex  ac- 
tion of  the  great  interests  of  life.  To  keep  a  secret  is  nothing  ; 
but"  to  be  silent  beforehand,  to  forget,  if  necessary,  for  thirty 
years,  like  Ali  Pasha,  the  better  to  ensure  a  revenge  pondered 


46  THE    THIRTEEN. 

during  those  thirty  years — this  is  a  fine  study  in  a  country 
where  few  men  can  dissemble  for  thirty  days  together. 

By  this  time  Mme.  Jules  was  Auguste  de  Maulincour's  whole 
life.  His  mind  was  always  intently  examining  the  means  by 
which  he  might  win  a  triumph  in  his  mysterious  duel  with  un- 
known antagonists.  His  desire  for  this  woman  grew  the 
greater  by  every  obstacle.  Amid  all  his  thoughts  Mme.  Jules 
was  always  present  in  his  heart  of  hearts ;  there  she  stood 
more  irresistible  now  in  her  imputed  sin  than  she  used  to  be 
with  all  the  undoubted  virtues  for  which  he  had  once  wor- 
shiped her. 

The  sick  man,  wishing  to  reconnoitre  the  enemy's  position, 
thought  there  could  be  no  danger  in  letting  the  old  com- 
mander into  the  secret.  The  commander  loved  Auguste  as  a 
father  loves  his  wife's  children ;  he  was  shrewd  and  adroit,  he 
was  of  a  diplomatic  turn  of  mind.  So  the  commander  came, 
heard  the  baron's  story,  and  shook  his  head,  and  the  two  held 
counsel.  Auguste  maintained  that  in  the  days  in  which  they 
lived  the  detective  force  and  the  powers  that  be  were  equal 
to  finding  out  any  mysteries,  and  that  if  there  was  absolutely 
no  other  way  the  police  would  prove  powerful  auxiliaries. 
The  commander,  the  vidame,  did  not  share  his  young  friend's 
confidence  or  his  convictions. 

"The  police  are  the  biggest  bunglers  on  earth,  dear  boy, 
and  the  powers  that  be  are  the  feeblest  of  all  things  where 
individuals  are  concerned.  Neither  the  authorities  nor  the 
police  can  get  to  the  bottom  of  people's  minds.  If  they  dis- 
cover the  causes  of  a  fact  that  is  all  that  can  reasonably  be 
expected  of  them.  Now  the  authorities  and  the  police  are 
eminently  unsuited  to  a  business  of  this  kind ;  the  personal 
interest  which  is  not  satisfied  till  everything  is  found  out  is 
essentially  lacking  in  them.  No  human  power  can  prevent  a 
murderer  or  a  poisoner  from  reaching  a  prince's  heart  or  an 
honest  man's  stomach.  It  is  passion  that  makes  the  complete 
detective." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  47 

With  that  the  vidame  strongly  advised  his  young  friend  the 
baron  to  travel.  Let  him  go  to  Italy,  and  from  Italy  to 
Greece,  and  from  Greece  to  Syria  and  Asia,  and  come  back 
only  when  his  mysterious  enemies  should  be  convinced  of  his 
repentance.  In  his  way  he  would  conclude  a  tacit  peace 
with  them.  Or,  if  he  stayed,  he  had  better  keep  to  his  house, 
and  even  to  his  room,  since  there  he  could  secure  himself 
against  the  attacks  of  this  Ferragus,  and  never  leave  it  except 
to  crush  the  enemy  once  for  all. 

"A  man  should  never  touch  his  enemy  except  to  smite  off 
his  head,"  the  vidame  said  gravely. 

Nevertheless,  the  old  man  promised  his  favorite  that  he 
would  bring  all  the  astuteness  with  which  heaven  had  gifted 
him  to  bear  on  the  case,  and  that,  without  committing  any 
one,  he  would  send  a  reconnoitring  party  into  the  enemy's 
camp,  know  all  that  went  on  there,  and  prepare  a  victory. 

The  vidame  had  in  his  service  a  retired  Figaro,  as  mis- 
chievous a  monkey  as  ever  took  human  shape.  In  former 
times  the  man  had  been  diabolically  clever,  and  a  convict's 
physical  frame  could  not  have  responded  better  to  all  demands 
made  upon  it ;  he  was  agile  as  a  thief  and  subtle  as  a  woman, 
but  he  had  fallen  into  the  decadence  of  genius  for  want  of 
practice.  New  social  conditions  in  Paris  have  reformed  the 
old  valets  of  comedy.  The  emeritus  Scapin  was  attached  to 
his  master  as  to  a  being  of  superior  order ;  but  the  crafty 
vidame  used  to  increase  the  annual  wage  of  his  sometime 
provost  of  gallantry  by  a  tolerably  substantial  sum,  in  such 
sort  that  the  natural  ties  of  good-will  were  strengthened  by 
the  bond  of  interest,  and  the  old  vidame  received  in  return 
such  watchful  attention  as  the  tcnderest  of  mistresses  could 
scarcely  devise  in  a  lover's  illness.  In  this  relic  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  this  peril  of  old-world  stage-servants,  this 
minister  incorruptible  (since  all  his  desires  were  gratified) — 
the  vidame  and  M.  de  Maulincour  both  put  their  trust. 

"Monsieur  Ic  Baron  would  spoil  it  all,"  said  the  great  man 


48  THE    THIRTEEN. 

in  livery,  summoned  by  the  vidame  to  the  council.  "Let 
monsieur  eat  and  drink  and  sleep  in  peace.  I  will  take  it  all 
upon  myself." 

And  indeed,  a  week  afterward,  when  M.  de  Maulincour, 
now  perfectly  recovered,  was  breakfasting  with  his  grand- 
mother and  the  vidame,  Justin  appeared  to  make  his  report. 
The  dowager  went  back  to  her  rooms,  and  he  began  with  that 
false  modesty  which  men  of  genius  affect — 

"  Ferragus  is  not  the  real  name  of  the  enemy  in  pursuit  of 
Monsieur  le  Baron.  The  man,  the  devil  rather,  is  called 
Gratien,  Henri,  Victor,  Jean-Joseph  Bourignard.  The  said 
Gratien  Bourignard  used  to  be  a  builder  and  contractor;  he 
was  a  very  rich  man  at  one  time ;  and  most  of  all,  he  was  one 
of  the  prettiest  fellows  in  Paris,  a  Lovelace  that  might  have  led 
Grandison  himself  astray.  My  information  goes  no  further. 
He  once  was  a  common  workman ;  the  journeymen  of  the 
order  of  Devorants  elected  him  as  their  head,  with  the  name 
of  Ferragus  XXIII.  The  police  should  know  that,  if  they  are 
there  to  know  anything.  The  man  has  moved,  and  at  present 
is  lodging  in  the  Rue  Joquelet.  Madame  Jules  Desmarets 
often  goes  to  see  him.  Her  husband  pretty  often  sets  her 
down  in  the  Rue  Vivienne  on  his  way  to  the  Bourse ;  or  she 
leaves  her  husband  at  the  Bourse,  and  comes  back  that  way. 
Monsieur  le  Vidame  knows  so  much  in  these  matters  that  he 
will  not  expect  me  to  tell  him  whether  the  husband  rules  the 
wife  or  the  wife  rules  her  husband,  but  Madame  Jules  is  so  pretty 
that  I  should  bet  on  her.  All  this  is  absolutely  certain.  My 
Bourignard  often  goes  to  gamble  at  number  129.  He  is  a  gay 
dog,  with  a  liking  for  women,  saving  your  presence,  and  has 
his  amours  like  a  man  of  condition.  As  for  the  rest,  he  is 
frequently  in  luck,  he  makes  up  like  an  actor  and  can  take 
on  any  face  he  likes  ;  he  just  leads  the  queerest  life  you  ever 
heard  of.  He  has  several  addresses,  I  have  no  doubt,  for  he 
nearly  always  escapes  what  Monsieur  le  Vidame  calls  '  parlia- 
mentary investigation.'  If  monsieur  wishes,  however,  the 


THE    THIRTEEN.  49 

man  can  be  got  rid  of  decently,  leading  such  a  life  as  he  does. 
It  is  always  easy  to  get  rid  of  a  man  with  a  weakness  for 
women.  Still,  the  capitalist  is  talking  of  moving  again.  Now, 
have  Monsieur  le  Vidame  and  Monsieur  le  Baron  any  orders  to 
give?" 

"  I  am  pleased  with  you,  Justin.  Go  no  further  in  the 
affair  without  instructions,  but  keep  an  eye  on  everything  here, 
so  that  Monsieur  le  Baron  shall  have  nothing  to  fear."  He 
turned  to  Maulincour.  "  Live  as  before,  dear  boy,"  he  said, 
"and  forget  Madame  Jules." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Auguste,  "  I  will  not  give  her  up  to  Gratien 
Bourignard  ;  I  mean  to  have  him  bound  hand  and  foot  and 
Madame  Jules  as  well." 

That  evening  Auguste  de  Maulincour,  recently  promoted  to 
a  higher  rank  in  the  Guards,  went  to  a  ball  in  Mme.  la  Durh- 
esse  de  Berri's  apartments  at  the  Elysee-Bourbon.  There, 
surely,  was  no  fear  of  the  slightest  danger ;  and  yet  the  Baron 
de  Maulincour  came  away  with  an  affair  of  honor  on  his 
hands,  and  no  hope  of  arranging  it.  His  antagonist,  the  Mar- 
quis de  Ronquerolles,  had  the  strongest  reasons  for  complain- 
ing of  him  ;  the  quarrel  arose  out  of  an  old  flirtation  with  M. 
de  Ronquerolle's  sister,  the  Comtesse  de  Serizy.  This  lady, 
who  could  not  endure  high-flown  German  sentiment,  was  all 
the  more  particular  with  regard  to  every  detail  of  the  prude's 
costume  in  which  she  appeared  in  public.  Some  fatal  inex- 
plicable prompting  moved  Auguste  to  make  a  harmless  joke, 
Mme.  de  Serizy  took  it  in  very  bad  part,  and  her  brother  took 
offense.  Explanations  took  place  in  whispers  in  a  corner  of 
the  room.  Both  behaved  like  men  of  the  world,  there  was  no 
fuss  of  any  kind  ;  and  not  till  next  day  did  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Honore,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  and  the  chateau 
hear  what  had  happened.  Mme.  de  Serizy  was  warmly  de- 
fended ;  all  the  blame  was  thrown  on  Maulincour.  August 
persons  intervened.  Seconds  of  the  highest  rank  were  im- 
posed on  M.  de  Maulincour  and  M.  de  Ronquerolles ;  every 
4 


50  THE    THIRTEEN. 

precaution  was  taken  on  the  ground  to  prevent  a  fatal  termi- 
nation. 

Auguste's  antagonist  was  a  man  of  pleasure,  not  wanting,  as 
every  one  admitted,  in  a  sense  of  honor ;  it  was  impossible  to 
think  of  the  marquis  as  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  Ferragus,  Chief 
of  Devorants  ;  and  yet,  as  Auguste  de  Maulincour  stood  up 
before  his  man,  in  his  own  mind  he  felt  a  wish  to  obey  an  un- 
accountable instinct,  and  to  put  a  question  to  him. 

"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  addressing  his  seconds,  "  I  emphati- 
cally do  not  refuse  to  stand  Monsieur  de  Ronquerolles'  fire ; 
but,  first,  I  own  that  I  was  in  fault,  I  will  make  the  apology 
which  he  is  sure  to  require,  and  even  in  public  if  he  wishes  it; 
for,  when  a  lady  is  in  the  case,  there  is  nothing,  I  think,  dis- 
honoring to  a  gentleman  in  such  an  apology.  So  I  appeal  to 
his  commonsense  and  generosity,  isn't  there  something  rather 
senseless  in  fighting  a  duel  when  the  better  cause  may  happen 
to  get  the  worst  of  it  ?  " 

But  M.  de  Ronquerolles  would  not  hear  of  such  a  way  out 
of  the  affair.  The  baron's  suspicions  were  confirmed.  He 
went  across  to  his  opponent. 

"Well,  Monsieur  le  Marquis,"  he  said,  "will  you  pledge 
me  your  word  as  a  noble,  before  these  gentlemen,  that  you 
bear  me  no  grudge  save  the  one  for  which  ostensibly  we  are 
to  fight?" 

"  Monsieur,  that  is  a  question  which  ought  not  to  be  put 
to  me." 

M.  de  Ronquerolles  returned  to  his  place.  It  was  agreed 
beforehand  that  only  one  shot  should  be  fired  on  either  side. 
The  antagonists  were  so  far  apart  that  a  fatal  end  for  M.  de 
Maulincour  seemed  problematical,  not  to  say  impossible  ;  but 
Auguste  dropped.  The  bullet  had  passed  through  his  ribs, 
missing  the  heart  by  two  finger-breadths.  Luckily,  the  extent 
of  the  injury  was  not  great. 

"  This  was  no  question  of  revenge  for  a  dead  passion  ;  you 
aimed  too  well,  monsieur,  for  that,"  said  the  baron. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  51 

M.  de  Ronquerolles,  thinking  that  he  had  killed  his  man, 
could  not  keep  back  a  sardonic  smile. 

"Julius  Caesar's  sister,  monsieur,  must  be  above  suspicion." 

"  Madame  Jules  again  !  "  exclaimed  Auguste,  and  he  fainted 
away  before  he  could  finish  the  caustic  sarcasm  that  died  on 
his  lips.  He  had  lost  a  good  deal  of  blood,  but  his  wound 
was  not  dangerous.  For  a  fortnight  his  grandmother  and  the 
vidame  nursed  him  with  the  lavish  care  which  none  but  the 
old,  wise  with  the  experience  of  a  lifetime,  can  give.  Then 
one  morning  he  received  a  rude  shock.  It  came  from  his 
grandmother.  She  told  him  that  her  old  age,  the  last  days 
of  her  life,  were  filled  with  deadly  anxiety.  A  letter  addressed 
to  her  and  signed  "  F."  gave  her  the  history  of  the  espionage 
to  which  her  grandson  had  stooped  ;  it  was  given  in  full  from 
point  to  point.  M.  de  Maulincour  was  accused  of  conduct 
unworthy  a  man  of  honor.  He  had  posted  an  old  woman 
(so  it  was  stated)  near  the  hack-stand  in  the  Rue  de  Menars. 
Nominally  his  wrinkled  spy  supplied  water  to  the  cabmen,  but 
really  she  was  stationed  there  to  watch  Mme.  Jules  Desmarets. 
He  had  deliberately  set  himself  to  play  the  detective  on  one 
of  the  most  harmless  men  in  the  world,  and  tried  to  find  out 
all  about  him  when  secrets  which  concerned  the  lives  of  three 
persons  were  involved.  Of  his  own  accord  he  had  entered 
upon  a  pitiless  struggle,  in  which  he  had  been  wounded  three 
times  already,  and  must  inevitably  succumb  at  last  ;  for  his 
death  had  been  sworn  ;  every  human  power  would  be  exerted 
to  compass  it.  It  was  too  late  for  M.  de  Maulincour  to  escape 
his  doom  by  a  promise  to  respect  the  mysterious  life  of  these 
three  persons  ;  for  it  was  impossible  to  believe  the  word  of  a 
gentleman  who  could  sink  so  low  as  the  level  of  a  police  spy. 
And  for  what  reason  ?  To  disturb,  without  cause,  the  exist- 
ence of  an  innocent  woman  and  a  respectable  old  man. 

The  letter  was  as  nothing  to  Auguste  compared  with  the 
Baronne  de  Manlincour's  loving  reproaches.  How  could  he 
fail  to  trust  and  respect  a  woman  ?  How  could  he  play  the 


52  THE    THIRTEEN. 

spy  on  her  when  he  had  no  right  to  do  so  ?  Had  any  man  a 
right  to  spy  on  the  woman  whom  he  loved  ?  There  followed 
a  torrent  of  excellent  reasoning  which  never  proves  anything. 
It  put  the  young  man  for  the  first  time  of  his  life  into  one  of 
those  towering  passions  from  which  the  most  decisive  actions 
of  life  are  apt  to  spring. 

"  If  this  is  to  be  a  duel  to  the  death  "  (so  he  concluded), 
"  I  am  justified  in  using  every  means  in  my  power  to  kill  my 
enemy." 

Forthwith  the  vidame,  on  behalf  of  M.  de  Maulincour, 
waited  on  the  superintendent  of  the  detective  force  in  Paris, 
and  gave  him  a  full  account  of  the  adventure,  without  bring- 
ing Mme.  Jules'  name  into  the  story,  although  she  was  the 
secret  knot  of  all  the  threads.  He  told  him,  in  confidence, 
of  the  fears  of  the  Maulincour  family,  thus  threatened  by  some 
unknown  person,  an  enemy  daring  enough  to  vow  such  ven- 
geance on  an  officer  in  the  Guards,  in  the  teeth  of  the  law 
and  the  police.  He  of  the  police  was  so  much  surprised  that 
he  raised  his  green  spectacles,  blew  his  nose  two  or  three 
times,  and  offered  his  mull  to  the  vidame,  who  said,  to  save 
his  dignity,  that  he  never  took  snuff,  though  his  countenance 
was  bedabbled  with  rappee.  The  head  of  the  department 
took  his  notes,  and  promised  that,  with  the  help  of  Vidocq 
and  his  sleuth  hounds,  the  enemy  of  the  Maulincour  family 
should  be  accounted  for  in  a  very  short  time ;  there  were  no 
mysteries,  so  he  was  pleased  to  say,  for  the  Paris  police. 

A  few  days  afterward,  the  superintendent  came  to  the  Hotel 
Maulincour  to  see  M.  le  Vidame,  and  found  the  baron  per- 
fectly recovered  from  his  last  injuries.  He  thanked  the  family 
in  formal  style  for  the  particulars  which  they  had  been  so  good 
as  to  communicate,  and  informed  them  that  the  man  Bourig- 
nard  was  a  convict  sentenced  to  twenty  years'  penal  servitude, 
and  that  in  some  miraculous  way  he  made  his  escape  from  the 
gang  on  the  way  from  Bic&tre-to  Toulon.  The  police  had 
made  fruitless  efforts  to  catch  him  for  the  past  fifteen  years  ; 


THE    TH IK  TEEN.  53 

they  learned  that  lie  had  very  recklessly  come  back  to  live  in 
Paris;  and  there,  though  he  was  constantly  implicated  in  all 
sorts  of  shady  affairs,  hitherto  he  had  eluded  the  most  active 
search.  To  cut  it  short,  the  man,  whose  life  presented  a  great 
many  most  curious  details,  was  certain  to  be  seized  at  one  of 
his  numerous  addresses  and  given  up  to  justice.  This  red- 
tape  personage  concluded  his  official  report  with  the  remark 
that,  if  M.  de  Maulincour  attached  sufficient  importance  to 
the  affair  to  care  to  be  present  at  Bourignard's  capture,  he 
might  repair  to  such  and  such  a  number  in  the  Rue  Saintc- 
Foi  at  eight  o'clock  next  morning.  M.  de  Maulincour,  how- 
ever, felt  that  he  could  dispense  with  this  method  of  making 
certain  ;  he  shared  the  feeling  of  awe  which  the  police  inspires 
in  Paris ;  he  felt  every  confidence  in  the  diligence  of  the  local 
authorities. 

Three  days  afterward,  as  he  saw  nothing  in  the  newspapers 
about  an  arrest  which  surely  would  have  supplied  material 
for  an  interesting  article,  M.  de  Maulincour  was  beginning 
to  feel  uncomfortable,  when  the  following  letter  relieved  his 
mind: 

"MONSIEUR  LE  BARON: — I  have  the  honor  to  announce 
that  you  need  no  longer  entertain  any  fears  whatsoever  with 
regard  to  the  matter  in  hand.  The  man  Gratien  Bourignanl, 
alias  Ferragus,  died  yesterday  at  his  address,  number  7  Rue 
Joquelet.  The  suspicions  which  we  were  bound  to  raise  as  to 
his  identity  were  completely  set  at  rest  by  facts.  The  doctor 
of  the  prefecture  was  specially  sent  by  us  to  act  in  concert 
with  the  doctor  of  the  mayor's  office,  and  the  superintendent 
of  the  preventive  police  made  all  the  necessary  verifications, 
so  that  the  identity  of  the  body  might  be  established  beyond 
question.  The  personal  character,  moreover,  of  the  witnesses 
who  signed  the  certificate  of  death,  and  the  confirmatory  evi- 
dence of  those  who  were  present  at  the  time  of  the  said 
Bourignard's  death — including  that  of  the  cure  of  the  Bonne- 


54  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Nouvelle,  to  whom  he  made  a  last  confession  (for  he  made  a 
Christian  end) — all  these  things  taken  together  do  not  permit 
us  to  retain  the  slightest  doubt. 

"Permit  me,  M.  le  Baron,  to  remain,  etc." 

M.  de  Maulincour,  the  dowager,  and  the  commander  drew 
a  breath  of  unspeakable  relief.  She,  good  woman,  kissed  her 
grandson  while  a  tear  stole  down  her  cheeks,  and  then  crept 
away  to  give  thanks  to  God.  The  dear  dowager  had  made  a 
nine  days'  prayer  for  Auguste's  safety,  and  believed  that  she 
had  been  heard. 

"Well,"  said  the  vidame,  "now  you  can  go  to  that  ball 
that  you  were  speaking  about ;  I  have  no  more  objections  to 
make." 

M.  de  Maulincour  was  the  more  eager  to  go  to  this  ball 
since  Mme.  Jules  was  sure  to  be  there.  It  was  an  entertain- 
ment given  by  the  prefect  of  the  Seine  in  whose  house  the 
two  worlds  of  Paris  society  met  as  on  a  neutral  ground. 
Auguste  de  Maulincour  went  quickly  through  the  rooms,  but 
the  woman  who  exerted  so  great  an  influence  on  his  life  was 
not  to  be  seen.  He  went  into  a  still  empty  card-room,  where 
the  tables  awaited  players,  sat  himself  down  on  a  sofa,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  the  most  contradictory  thoughts  of  Mme. 
Jules,  when  some  one  grasped  him  by  the  arm ;  and,  to  his 
utter  amazement,  he  beheld  the  beggar  of  the  Rue  Coquilliere, 
Ida's  Ferragus,  the  man  who  lived  in  the  Rue  Soly,  Justin's 
Bourignard,  the  convict  that  had  died  the  day  before. 

"Not  a  sound,  not  a  word,  sir!"  said  Bourignard.  Au- 
guste knew  that  voice,  though  to  any  other  it  would  surely 
have  seemed  unrecognizable. 

The  man  was  very  well  dressed ;  he  wore  the  insignia  of 
the  Golden  Fleece  and  the  star  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

"Sir,"  he  hissed  out  like  a  hyena,  "  you  warrant  all  my 
attempts  on  your  life  by  allying  yourself  with  the  police.  You 
shall  die,  sir.  There  is  no  help  for  it.  Are  you  in  love  with 


77/A    THIRTEEN.  V, 

Madame  Jules?     Did  she  once  love  you?     What  right  have 
you  to  trouble  her  peace  and  smirch  her  reputation?" 

Somebody  else  came  up.     Fcrragus  rose  to  go. 

"  Do  you  know  this  man  ?"  asked  M.  dc  Mauhncour,  wit- 
ing  Ferragus  by  the  collar. 

But  Ferragus  slipped  briskly  out  of  his  grasp,  caught  M.  de 
Maulincour  by  the  hair,  and  shook  him  playfully  several  times. 

"Is  there  absolutely  nothing  but  a  dose  of  lead  that  will 
bring  you  to  your  senses  ?  "  he  replied. 

"I  am  not  personally  acquainted  with  him,"  said  de  Mar- 
say,  who  had  witnessed  this  scene,  "  but  I  know  that  this 
gentleman  is  Monsieur  de  Funcal,  a  very  rich  Portuguese." 

M.  de  Funcal  had  vanished.  The  baron  went  off  in  pur- 
suit, he  could  not  overtake  him,  but  he  reached  the  peristyle 
in  time  to  see  a  splendid  equipage  and  the  sneer  on  Ferragus' 
face,  before  he  was  whirled  away  out  of  sight. 

"  For  pity's  sake,  tell  me  where  Monsieur  de  Funcal  lives," 
said  Auguste,  betaking  himself  to  de  Marsay,  who  happened 
to  be  an  acquaintance. 

"I  do  not  know,  but  somebody  here  no  doubt  can  tell 
you." 

In  answer  to  a  question  put  to  the  prefect,  Auguste  learned 
that  the  Comte  de  Funcal's  address  was  at  the  Portuguese 
embassy.  At  that  moment,  while  he  fancied  that  he  could 
still  feel  those  ice-cold  ringers  in  his  hair,  he  saw  Mine.  Jules, 
in  all  the  splendor  of  that  beauty,  fresh,  graceful,  unaffected, 
radiant  with  the  sanctity  of  womanhood,  which  drew  him  to 
her  at  the  first.  For  him  this  creature  was  infernal ;  Auguste 
felt  nothing  for  her  now  but  hate — hate  that  overflowed  in 
murderous,  terrible  glances.  He  watched  for  an  opportunity 
of  speaking  to  her  alone. 

"Madame,"  he  said,  "three  times  already  your  bravos 
have  missed  me — 

"What  do  you  mean,  sir?"  she  answered,  reddening. 
heard   with  much   concern    that  several    bad    accidents  had 


56  THE    THIRTEEN. 

befallen  you ;  but  how  can  I  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
them?" 

"You  knew  that  the  man  in  the  Rue  Soly  has  hired  ruf- 
fians on  my  track?  " 

"Sir!  " 

"  Madame,  henceforth  I  must  call  you  to  account  not  only 
for  my  happiness,  but  also  for  my  life-blood " 

Jules  Desmarets  came  up  at  that  moment. 

"  What  are  you  saying  to  my  wife,  sir  ?  " 

"  Come  to  my  house  to  inquire  if  you  are  curious  to  know." 
And  Maulincour  went.  Mme.  Jules  looked  white  and  ready 
to  faint. 

There  are  very  few  women  who  have  not  been  called  upon, 
once  in  their  lives,  to  face  a  definite,  pointed,  trenchant 
question  with  regard  to  some  undeniable  fact,  one  of  those 
questions  which  a  husband  puts  in  a  pitiless  way.  The  bare 
thought  of  it  sends  a  cold  shiver  through  a  woman ;  the  first 
word  pierces  her  heart  like  a  steel  blade.  Hence  the  axiom, 
"All  women  are  liars."  They  tell  lies  to  spare  the  feelings 
of  others,  white  lies,  heroic  lies,  hideous  lies  ;  but  falsehood 
is  incumbent  upon  them.  Once  admit  this,  does  it  not  follow 
of  necessity  that  the  lies  ought  to  be  well  told  ?  Women  tell 
lies  to  admiration  in  France.  Our  manners  are  an  excellent 
school  for  dissimulation.  And,  after  all,  women  are  so  art- 
lessly insohnt,  so  charming,  so  graceful,  so  true  amid  false- 
hood, so  perfectly  well  aware  of  the  value  of  insincerity  as  a 
means  of  avoiding  the  rude  shocks  which  put  happiness  in 
peril,  that  falsehood  is  as  indispensable  to  them  as  cotton- 
batting  for  their  jewelry.  Insincerity  furnishes  forth  the 
staple  of  their  talk,  and  truth  is  only  brought  out  occasionally. 
They  speak  truth,  as  they  are  virtuous,  from  caprice  or  specu- 
lation. The  methods  vary  with  the  individual  character. 
Some  women  laugh  and  lie,  others  weep,  or  grow  grave,  or 
put  themselves  in  a  passion. 

They  begin  life  with  a  feigned  indifference  to  the  homage 


THE    THIRTEEN.  57 

which  gratifies  them  most ;  they  often  end  by  insincerity  with 
themselves.  Who  has  not  admired  their  seeming  loftine» 
when  they  are  trembling  the  while  for  the  mysterious  treasure 
of  love?  Who  has  not  studied  the  ea.se,  the  ready  wit,  the 
mental  disengagement  with  which  they  confront  the  greatest 
embarrassments  of  life  ?  Everything  is  quite  natural ;  deceit 
flows  out  as  snowflakes  fall  from  the  sky. 

And  yet  what  skill  women  have  to  discover  the  truth  in 
another !  How  subtly  they  can  use  the  hardest  logic,  in 
answer  to  the  passionately  uttered  question  that  never  fails  to 
yield  up  some  heart  secret  belonging  to  their  interlocutor,  if 
a  man  is  so  guileless  as  to  begin  with  questioning  a  woman. 
If  a  man  begins  to  question  a  woman,  he  delivers  himself  into 
her  hand.  Will  she  not  find  out  anything  that  he  means  to 
hide,  while  she  talks  and  says  nothing  ?  And  yet  there  arc 
men  that  have  the  audacity  to  enter  upon  a  contest  of  wits 
with  a  Parisienne — a  woman  who  can  put  herself  out  of  reach 
of  a  thrust  with  "You  are  very  inquisitive!  "  '•  What  docs 
it  matter  to  you?"  "Oh!  you  are  jealous!"  "And  how 
if  I  do  not  choose  to  answer  you  ?  "  A  Parisienne,  in  short, 
has  a  hundred  and  thirty-seven  thousand  ways  of  saying  No, 
while  her  variations  on  the  word  YES  surpass  computation. 
Surely  one  of  the  finest  diplomatic,  philosophic,  logographic, 
and  moral  performances  which  remain  to  be  made  would  be 
a  treatise  on  No  and  YES.  But  who  save  an  androgynous 
being  could  accomplish  the  diabolical  feat?  For  which  rea- 
son it  will  never  be  attempted.  Yet  of  all  unpublished  works, 
is  there  one  better  known  or  more  constantly  in  use  among 
women  ? 

Have  you  ever  studied  the  conduct,  the  pose,  the  Jisinrtl- 
tura  of  a  lie?  Look  at  it  now.  Mine.  Jules  was  sitting  in 
the  right-hand  corner  of  her  carriage,  and  her  husband  to  her 
left.  She  had  contrived  to  repress  her  emotion  as  she  left  the 
ballroom,  and  by  this  time  her  face  was  quite  composed. 
Her  husband  had  said  nothing  to  her  then  ;  he  said  nothing 


58  THE    THIRTEEN. 

now.  Jules  was  staring  out  of  the  window  at  the  dark  walls 
of  the  silent  houses  as  they  drove  past ;  but  suddenly,  just  as 
they  turned  the  corner  of  a  street,  he  seemed  to  come  to  some 
determination,  he  looked  intently  at  his  wife.  She  seemed  to 
feel  cold  in  spite  of  the  fur-lined  pelisse  in  which  she  was 
wrapped ;  she  looked  pensive,  he  thought,  and  perhaps  she 
really  was  pensive.  Of  all  subtly  communicable  moods, 
gravity  and  reflection  are  the  most  contagious. 

"  What  can  Monsieur  de  Maulincour  have  said  to  move  you 
so  deeply?"  began  Jules.  "And  what  is  this  that  he  wishes 
me  to  hear  at  his  house?  " 

"  Why,  he  can  tell  you  nothing  at  his  house  that  I  cannot 
tell  you  now,"  she  replied. 

And  with  that  woman's  subtlety,  which  is  always  slightly 
dishonoring  to  virtue,  Mme.  Jules  waited  for  another  question. 
But  her  husband  turned  his  head  away  and  resumed  his  study 
of  arched  gateways.  Would  it  not  mean  suspicion  and  dis- 
trust if  he  asked  any  more  ?  It  is  a  crime  in  love  to  suspect 
a  woman  ;  and  Jules  had  already  killed  a  man,  without  a  doubt 
of  his  wife.  Clemence  did  not  know  how  much  deep  passion 
and  reflection  lay  beneath  her  husband's  silence;  and  little 
did  Jules  imagine  the  extraordinary  drama  which  locked  his 
wife's  heart  from  him.  And  the  carriage  went  on  and  on 
through  silent  Paris,  and  the  husband  and  wife,  two  lovers 
who  idolized  each  other,  nestled  softly  and  closely  together 
among  the  silken  cushions,  a  deep  gulf  yawning  between 
them  all  the  while. 

How  many  strange  scenes  take  place  in  the  elegant  coupes 
which  pass  through  the  streets  between  midnight  and  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning  after  a  ball !  The  carriages  alluded 
to,  be  it  understood,  are  fitted  with  transparent  panes  of  glass, 
and  lamps  that  not  merely  light  up  the  brougham  itself,  but 
the  whole  street  as  well  on  either  side ;  they  belong  to  law- 
sanctioned  love,  and  the  law  gives  a  man  a  right  to  sulk  and 
fall  out  with  his  wife,  and  kiss  and  make  it  up  again,  in  a 


THE    THIRTEEN.  .',9 

coup£  or  anywhere  else.  So  married  couples  are  at  liberty  to 
quarrel  without  fear  of  being  seen  by  passcrvby.  And  how 
many  secrets  are  revealed  to  foot-passrngcrs  in  the  dark  streets, 
to  the  young  bachelors  wiio  drove  to  the  ball  and,  tor  some 
reason  or  other,  are  walking  home  afterward  !  For  the  first 
time  in  their  lives,  Jules  and  Clcmence  leaned  back  in  their 
respective  corners;  usually  Dcsmarets  pressed  close  to  his 
wife's  side. 

"It  is  very  cold,"  said  Mine.  Jules.  But  her  hu.band 
heard  nothing  ;  he  was  intent  on  reading  all  the  dark  signs 
above  the  stores. 

"Clemence,"  he  began  at  last,  "  forgive  me  for  this  ques- 
tion that  I  am  about  to  ask?" 

He  came  nearer,  put  his  arm  about  her  waist,  and  drew  her 
toward  him. 

"Oh,  dear  !  here  it  comes  !  "  thought  poor  Clemence. 

"Well,"  she  said  aloud,  anticipating  the  question,  "you 
wish  to  know  what  Monsieur  dc  Maulincour  was  saying  to 
me?  I  will  tell  you,  Jules;  but,  I  am  afraid.  Ah,  God  !  can 
we  have  secrets  from  each  other?  A  moment  ago  I  knew  that 
you  were  struggling  between  the  consciousness  that  we  love 
each  other  and  a  vague  dread  ;  but  that  consciousness  that  we 
love  each  other  is  unclouded,  is  it  not?  and  do  not  your 
doubts  seem  very  shadowy  to  you?  Why  not  stay  in  the 
light  that  you  love?  When  I  have  told  you  everything,  you 
will  wish  to  know  more;  and,  after  all,  I  myself  do  not  know 
what  is  lurking  under  that  man's  strange  words.  And  then, 
perhaps,  there  would  be  a  duel,  ending  in  a  death.  I  would 
far  rather  that  we  both  put  that  unpleasant  moment  out  of  our 
minds.  But,  in  any  case,  give  me  your  word  to  wait  till  thi 
most  extraordinary  adventure  is  entirely  cleared  up  in  some 
natural  way. 

"  Monsieur  de  Maulincour  declared  that  those  three  acci- 
dents of  which  you  heard — the  bloc  k  of  stone  that  k 
servant,  the  carriage  accident,  and  the  duel  ab-.ni!  Madame  de 


60  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Serizy — were  all  brought  upon  him  by  a  plot  which  I  had 
woven  against  him.  And  he  threatened  to  explain  my  reasons 
for  wishing  to  murder  him  to  you. 

"  Can  you  make  anything  out  of  all  this  ?  It  was  his  face 
that  disturbed  me  ;  there  was  madness  in  it ;  his  eyes  were 
haggard  ;  he  was  so  excited  that  he  could  not  bring  out  his 
words.  I  felt  sure  that  he  was  mad.  That  was  all.  Now,  I 
should  not  be  a  woman  if  I  did  not  know  that,  for  a  year  past, 
Monsieur  de  Maulincour  has  been,  as  they  say,  quite  wild 
about  me.  He  has  never  met  me  except  at  dances  ;  we  have 
never  exchanged  any  words  but  ballroom  small-talk.  Perhaps 
he  wants  to  separate  us,  so  that  I  may  be  left  defenseless  and 
alone  some  day.  You  see  how  it  is  !  You  are  frowning 
already.  Oh,  I  detest  the  world  with  all  my  heart  !  We  are 
so  happy  without  it,  why  should  we  go  in  search  of  society  ? 
Jules,  I  beg  of  you,  promise  me  that  you  will  forget  all  this  ! 
I  expect  we  shall  hear  to-morrow  that  Monsieur  de  Maulincour 
has  gone  out  of  his  mind." 

"  What  an  extraordinary  thing  !  "  said  Jules  to  himself,  as 
he  stepped  out  into  the  peristyle  of  his  own  abode. 

And  here,  if  this  story  is  to  be  developed  by  giving  it  in  all 
its  truth  of  detail,  by  following  its  course  through  all  its  in- 
tricacies, there  must  be  a  revelation  of  some  of  the  secrets  of 
love — secrets  learned  by  slipping  under  the  canopy  of  a  bed- 
chamber, not  brazenly,  but  after  the  manner  of  Puck,  without 
startling  either  Jeanie  or  Dougal,  or  anybody  else.  For  this 
venture,  one  had  need  be  chaste  as  our  noble  French  language 
consents  to  be,  and  daring  as  Gerard's  brush  in  his  picture  of 
Daphnis  and  Chloe. 

Mme.  Jules'  bedroom  was  a  sacred  place.  No  one  but  her 
husband  and  her  maid  was  allowed  to  enter  it.  Wealth  has 
great  privileges,  and  the  most  enviable  of  them  all  is  the 
power  of  carrying  out  thoughts  and  feelings  to  the  uttermost; 
of  quickening  sensibility  by  fulfilling  its  myriad  caprices ;  of 
encompassing  that  inner  life  with  a  splendor  that  exalts  it, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  «1 

elegance  that  refines,  and  the  subtle  shades  of  expression  that 
enhance  the  charm  of  love. 

If  you  particularly  detest  picnic  dinner*  and  meals  badly 
served  ;  if  you  feel  a  certain  pleasure  at  the  sight  of  dazzling 
white  damask,  plate,  exquisite  porcelain,  and  nrhly  carved 
and  gilded  tables  lit  up  by  translucent  tapers  ;  if  you  have  a 
taste  for  miracles  of  the  most  re-fined  culinary  art  Ixrnrath 
silver  coverings  with  armorial  bearings  ;  then,  if  you  have  a 
mind  to  be  consistent,  you  must  come  down  from  the  heights 
of  your  garret,  and  you  must  leave  the  griscttes  in  the  street. 
Garrets  and  grisettes,  like  umbrellas  and  hinged  clogs,  must 
be  left  to  people  who  bring  tickets  to  the  doors  of  restaurants 
to  pay  for  their  dinners  ;  and  you  must  think  of  love  as  some- 
thing rudimentary,  only  to  be  developed  in  all  its  charm  by  a 
gilded  fireside,  in  a  room  made  deaf  to  all  sound  from  without 
by  drawn  blinds  and  closed  shutters  and  thick  curtain  folds, 
while  the  opal  light  of  a  Parian  lamp  falls  over  soft  carets 
from  the  Savonncrie  and  the  silken  hangings  on  the  walls. 
You  must  have  mirrors  to  reflect  each  other,  to  give  you  an 
infinite  series  of  pictures  of  the  woman  in  whom  you  would 
fain  find  many  women,  of  her  to  whom  Love  gives  so  many 
forms.  There  should  be  long,  low  sofas,  and  a  bed  like  a 
secret  which  you  guess  before  it  is  revealed  ;  and  soft  furs 
spread  for  bare  feet  on  the  floor  of  the  dainty  chamber,  and 
wax  tapers  tinder  glass  shades,  and  white  gauze  draperies,  ?o 
that  you  can  see  to  read  at  any  hour  of  the  night ;  and  flowers 
without  too  heavy-sweet  a  scent,  and  linen  fine  enough  to 
satisfy  Anne  of  Austria.* 

This  delicious  scheme  had  been  carried  out  by  Mrne.  Jules. 
But  that  is  nothing  ;  any  woman  of  taste  might  do  as  much  ; 
though,  nevertheless,  there  is  a  certain  touch  of  personality  in 
the  arrangement  of  these  things,  a  something  which  stamps 
this  ornament  or  that  detail  with  a  character  of  its  own.  The 
fanatical  cult  of  individuality  is  more  prevalent  than  ever  in 
*  Her  chemise  couM  be  tu^sct!  thro;i-h  .1  finger-rin^. 


62  THE    THIRTEEN. 

these  days.  Rich  people  in  France  are  beginning  to  grow 
more  and  more  exclusive  in  their  tastes  and  belongings  than 
they  have  been  for  the  past  thirty  years.  Mme.  Jules  knew 
that  her  programme  must  be  carried  out  consistently;  that 
everything  about  her  must  be  part  of  a  harmonious  whole  of 
luxury  which  make  a  fit  setting  for  love. 

"Fifteen  hundred  francs  and  my  Sophie,"  or  "Love  in  a 
Cottage,"  is  the  sort  of  talk  to  expect  from  famished  creatures, 
and  brown  bread  does  very  well  at  first ;  but  if  the  pair  are 
really  in  love,  their  palates  grow  nicer,  and  in  the  end  they 
sigh  for  the  riches  of  the  kitchen.  Love  holds  toil  and  want 
in  abhorrence,  and  would  rather  die  at  once  than  live  a  miser- 
able life  of  hand  to  mouth. 

Most  women  after  a  ball  are  impatient  for  sleep.  Their 
rooms  are  strewn  with  limp  flowers,  scentless  bouquets,  and 
ball-gowns.  Their  little  thick  shoes  are  left  under  an  arm- 
chair, they  totter  across  the  floor  in  their  high-heeled  slippers, 
take  the  combs  out  of  their  hair,  and  shake  down  their  tresses 
without  a  thought  of  their  appearance.  Little  do  they  care  if 
they  disclose  to  their  husbands'  eyes  the  clasps  and  pins  and 
cunning  contrivances  which  maintained  the  dainty  fabric  in 
erection.  All  mystery  is  laid  aside,  all  pretense  dropped  for 
the  husband — there  is  no  make-up  for  him.  The  corset  of  the 
reparative  kind,  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made,  is  left  lying 
about  if  the  sleepy  waiting-woman  forgets  to  put  it  away. 
Whalebone  stiffening,  sleeves  encased  in  buckram,  delusive 
finery,  hair  supplied  by  the  coiffeur,  the  whole  factitious 
woman,  in  fact,  lies  scattered  about.  Disjecta  membra  poetce, 
the  artificial  poetry  so  much  admired  by  those  for  whose  bene- 
fit the  whole  was  conceived  and  elaborated,  the  remains  of 
the  pretty  woman  of  an  hour  ago,  encumber  every  corner, 
while  the  genuine  woman  in  slatternly  disorder,  and  the 
crumpled  nightcap  of  yesterday,  to-day,  and  to-morrow,  pre- 
sents herself  yawning  to  the  arms  of  a  husband  who  yawns 
likewise. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  63 

"  For,  really,  monsieur,  if  you  want  a  pretty  nightcap  to 
rumple  every  night,  you  must  increase  my  allowance." 

Such  is  life  as  it  is.  A  woman  is  always  old  and  unattrac- 
tive to  her  husband  ;  always  smart,  dainty,  and  dressed  in  her 
best  for  that  Other,  every  husband's  rival,  the  world  that 
slanders  women  or  picks  them  to  pieces. 

Mme.  Jules  did  quite  otherwise.  I^ove,  like  all  other 
beings,  has  its  own  instinct  of  self-preservation.  Inspired  by 
love,  constantly  rewarded  by  happiness,  she  never  failed  in 
the  scrupulous  performance  of  little  duties  in  which  no  one 
can  grow  slack,  for  by  such  means  love  is  krrpt  unimpaired  by 
time.  Are  not  these  pains,  these  tasks  imposed  by  a  self- 
respect  which  becomes  her  passing  well  ?  What  are  they  but 
sweet  flatteries,  a  way  of  reverencing  the  beloved  in  one's  own 
person  ? 

So  Mme.  Jules  had  closed  the  door  of  her  dressing-room 
on  her  husband  ;  there  she  changed  her  ball-gown  and  came 
out  dressed  for  the  night,  mysteriously  adorned  for  the  mys- 
terious festival  of  her  heart.  The  chamber  was  always  ex- 
quisite and  dainty  ;  Jules,  when  he  entered  it,  found  a  woman 
coquettishly  wrapped  in  a  graceful,  loose  gown,  with  her  thick 
hair  twisted  simply  about  her  head.  She  had  nothing  to  fear 
from  dishevelment ;  she  robbed  Love's  sight  and  touch  of 
nothing.  This  woman  was  always  simpler  and  more  beautiful 
for  him  than  for  the  world — a  woman  revived  by  her  toilet,  a 
woman  whose  whole  art  consisted  in  being  whiter  than  the 
cambrics  that  she  wore,  fresher  than  the  freshest  srcnt.  more 
irresistible  than  the  wiliest  courtesan.  In  a  word,  she  was 
always  loving,  and  therefore  always  beloved.  In  this  admir- 
able skill  in  It  metitr  de  ftmme — in  the  art  and  mystery  of 
being  a  woman — lay  the  great  secret  of  Josephine's  charm  for 
Napoleon,  of  Cesonia's  influence  over  Caligula  in  older  times, 
of  the  ascendency. of  Diane  de  Poitiers  over  Hrrri  II.  And 
if  this  secret  is  so  potent  in  the  hands  of  women  who  have 
counted  seven  or  eight  lustres,  what  a  weapon  i>  it  for  a 


64  THE    THIRTEEN. 

young  wife !  The  prescribed  happiness  of  fidelity  becomes 
rapture. 

Mme.  Jules  had  been  particularly  careful  of  her  toilet  for 
the  night.  After  that  conversation  which  froze  the  blood  in 
her  veins  with  terror,  and  still  caused  her  the  liveliest  anxiety, 
she  meant  to  be  exquisitely  charming,  and  she  succeeded. 
She  fastened  her  cambric  dressing-gown,  leaving  it  loose  at 
the  throat,  and  let  her  dark  hair  fall  loosely  over  her  shoulders. 
An  intoxicating  fragrance  clung  about  her  after  her  scented 
bath,  her  bare  feet  were  thrust  into  velvet  slippers.  Jules,  in 
his  dressing-gown,  was  standing  meditatively  by  the  fire,  with 
his  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece,  and  one  foot  on  the  fender. 
Feeling  strong  on  her  vantage-ground,  she  tripped  across  to 
him  and  laid  a  hand  over  his  eyes.  Then  she  whispered,  close 
to  his  ear,  so  closely  that  he  could  feel  her  warm  breath  on 
him  and  the  tips  of  her  teeth  :  "  What  are  you  thinking  about, 
monsieur?  " 

With  quick  tact,  she  held  him  closely  to  her  and  put  her 
arms  about  him  to  snatch  him  away  from  his  gloomy  thoughts. 
A  woman  who  loves  knows  well  how  to  use  her  power ;  and 
the  better  the  woman,  the  more  irresistible  is  her  coquetry. 

"  Of  you,"  said  he. 

"Only  of  me?" 

"Yes!  " 

"  Oh  !  that  was  a  very  doubtful  '  Yes  ! '  " 

They  went  to  bed.  As  Mme.  Jules  fell  asleep  she  thought : 
"  Decidedly,  de  Maulincour  will  bring  about  some  misfortune. 
Jules  is  preoccupied  and  absent-minded ;  he  has  thoughts 
which  he  does  not  tell  me." 

Toward  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  Mme.  Jules  was 
awakened  by  a  foreboding  that  knocked  at  her  heart  while  she 
slept.  She  felt,  physically  and  mentally,  that  her  husband  was 
not  beside  her.  She  missed  Jules'  arm,  on  which  her  head 
had  lain  nightly  for  five  years,  while  she  slept  happily  and 
peacefully,  an  arm  that  never  wearied  of  the  weight.  A  voice 


THE    THIKTEEX.  6.', 

cried  :  "  Jules  is  in  pain  !  Jules  is  weeping  !  "  She  lifted  her 
head,  sat  upright,  felt  that  her  husband's  place  was  cold,  and 
saw  him  sitting  by  the  fire,  his  feet  on  the  fender,  hit  head 
leaning  back  in  the  great  armchair.  There  were  tears  on  his 
cheeks.  Poor  Clemence  was  out  of  bed  in  a  moment,  and 
sprang  to  her  husband's  knee. 

"  Jules,  what  is  it  ?  Are  you  not  feeling  well  ?  S[>eak,  tell 
me;  oh,  speak  to  me,  if  you  love  me." 

She  poured  out  a  hundred  words  of  the  deepest  tenderness. 
Jules,  at  his  wife's  feet,  kissed  her  knees,  her  hands.  The 
tears  flowed  afresh  as  he  answered — 

"  Clemence,  dear,  I  am  very  wretched.  It  is  not  love  if 
you  cannot  trust  your  mistress,  and  you  are  my  mistress.  I 
worship  you,  Clemence,  even  while  I  doubt  you.  The  things 
that  man  said  last  night  went  to  my  heart  ;  and,  in  spite  of 
me,  they  stay  there  to  trouble  me.  There  is  some  mystery 
underneath  this.  Indeed,  I  blush  to  say  it,  but  your  explana- 
tion did  not  satisfy  me.  Commonsense  sheds  a  light  on  it 
which  love  bids  me  reject.  It  is  a  dreadful  struggle.  How 
could  I  lie  there  with  your  head  on  my  shoulder  and  think 
that  there  were  thoughts  in  your  mind  that  I  did  not  know? 
Oh,  I  believe  you,  I  believe  in  you,"  he  exclaimed,  as  she 
smiled  sadly  and  seemed  about  to  speak  ''Say  not  a  word, 
reproach  me  with  nothing.  The  least  little  word  from  you 
would  break  my  heart.  And,  beside,  could  you  say  a  single 
thing  that  I  have  not  said  to  myself  for  the  last  three  hours? 
Yes,  for  three  hours  I  lay,  watching  you  as  you  slept,  so  beau- 
tiful you  were,  your  forehead  looked  so  quiet  and  pure.  Ah  ! 
yes,  you  have  always  told  me  all  your  thoughts,  have  you  not  ? 
I  am  alone  in  your  inmost  heart.  When  I  look  into  the  depths 
of  your  eyes,  I  read  all  that  lies  there.  Your  life  is  always  as 
pure  as  those  clear  eyes.  Ah  !  no,  there  is  no  secret  beneath 
their  transparent  gaze." 

He  rose  and  kissed  her  eyelids. 

"  Let  me  confess  it  to  you,  beloved  ;  all  through  these  five 
5 


66  THE    THIRTEEN. 

years  one  thing  has  made  me  happier  day  by  day,  I  have  been 
glad  that  you  should  have  none  of  the  natural  affections 
which  always  encroach  a  little  upon  love.  You  had  neither 
sister  nor  father  nor  mother  nor  friend ;  I  was  neither  above 
nor  below  any  other  in  thy  heart ;  I  was  there  alone.  Clem- 
ence,  say  over  again  for  me  all  the  intimate  sweet  words  that 
you  have  spoken  so  often  ;  do  not  scold  me ;  comfort  me,  I 
am  very  wretched.  I  have  a  hateful  suspicion  to  reproach 
myself  with,  while  you  have  nothing  burning  in  your  heart. 
Tell  me,  my  darling,  may  I  stay  by  your  side  ?  How  should 
two  that  are  so  truly  one  rest  their  heads  on  the  same  pillow, 
when  one  is  at  peace  and  the  other  in  pain  ?  What  can  you 
be  thinking  of?"  he  cried  abruptly,  as  Clemence  looked 
meditative  and  confused,  and  could  not  keep  back  the  tears. 

"I  am  thinking  of  my  mother,"  she  said  gravely.  "You 
could  not  know,  Jules,  how  it  hurt  your  Clemence  to  recall 
her  mother's  last  farewells,  while  your  voice,  the  sweetest  of 
all  music,  was  sounding  in  her  ears ;  to  remember  the  solemn 
pressure  of  the  chill  hand  of  a  dying  woman,  while  I  felt  your 
caresses,  and  the  overpowering  sense  of  the  sweetness  of  your 
love." 

She  made  him  rise,  and  held  him  tightly,  with  far  more 
than  man's  strength,  in  her"  arms ;  she  kissed  his  hair,  her 
tears  fell  over  him. 

"  Oh  !  I  could  be  hacked  into  pieces  for  you  !  Tell  me, 
beyond  doubt,  that  I  make  you  happy,  that  for  you  I  am  the 
fairest  of  women,  that  I  am  a  thousand  women  for  you.  But 
you  are  loved  as  no  other  man  can  ever  be  loved.  I  do  not 
know  what  the  words  'duty,'  'virtue'  mean.  Jules,  I  love 
you  for  your  own  sake  ;  it  makes  me  happy  to  love  you ;  I 
shall  always  love  you  ;  better  and  better,  till  my  last  sigh.  I 
take  a  kind  of  pride  in  my  love.  I  am  sure  that  I  am  fated 
to  know  but  the  one  great  love  in  my  life.  Perhaps  this  that 
I  am  going  to  say  is  wicked,  but  I  am  glad  to  have  no  chil- 
dren, I  wish  for  none.  I  feel  that  I  am  more  a  wife  than  a 


THE    THIRTEEN.  67 

mother.  Have  you  any  fears  ?  Listen  to  me,  my  love ; 
promise  me  to  forget,  not  this  hour  of  mingled  love  and 
doubt,  but  that  madman's  words.  I  ask  it,  Jules.  Promise 
me  not  to  see  him  again,  to  keep  away  from  his  house.  I 
have  a  feeling  that  if  you  go  a  single  step  further  in  that  laby- 
rinth, we  shall  both  sink  into  depths  where  I  shall  die,  with 
your  name  still  on  my  lips,  your  heart  in  my  heart.  Why  do 
you  put  me  so  high  in  your  inmost  life,  and  so  low  in  the 
outer?  You  can  take  so  many  men's  fortunes  on  trust,  and 
you  cannot  give  me  the  alms  of  one  doubt?  And  when,  for 
the  first  time  in  your  life,  you  can  prove  that  your  faith  in  me 
is  unbounded,  would  you  dethrone  me  in  your  heart  ?  Be- 
tween a  lunatic  and  your  wife,  you  believe  the  lunatic's  word? 
Oh!  Jules " 

She  broke  off,  flung  back  the  hair  that  fell  over  her  fore- 
head and  throat,  and  in  heart-rending  tones  she  added,  "  I 
have  said  too  much.  A  word  should  be  enough.  If  there  is 
still  a  shadow  across  your  mind  and  your  forehead,  however 
faint  it  may  be,  mind,  it  will  kill  me." 

She  shivered  in  spite  of  herself,  and  her  face  grew  white. 

"Oh  !  I  will  kill  that  man,"  said  Jules  to  himself,  as  he 
caught  up  his  wife  and  carried  her  to  the  bed.  "  Let  us  sleep 
in  peace,  dear  angel,"  he  said  aloud  ;  "  I  have  put  it  all  out 
of  mind,  I  give  you  my  word." 

The  loving  words  were  repeated  more  lovingly,  and  Clem- 
ence  slept.  Jules,  watching  his  sleeping  wife,  told  himself, 
"She  is  right.  When  love  is  so  pure,  a  suspicion  is  like  a 
blight.  Yes,  and  a  blight  on  so  innocent  a  soul,  so  delicate  a 
flower,  is  certain  death." 

If  between  two  human  creatures,  each  full  of  love  for  the 
other,  with  a  common  life  at  every  moment,  there  should  arise 
a  cloud,  the  cloud  will  vanish  away,  but  not  without  leaving 
some  trace  of  its  passage  behind.  Perhaps  their  love  grows 
deeper,  as  earth  is  fairer  after  the  rain  ;  or  perhaps  the  shock 
reverberates  like  distant  thunder  in  a  blue  sky  ;  but,  at  any 


68  THE    THIRTEEN. 

rate,  they  cannot  take  up  life  where  it  was  before,  love  must 
increase  or  diminish.  At  breakfast,  M.  and  Mme.  Jules 
showed  each  other  an  exaggerated  attention.  In  their  glances 
there  was  an  almost  forced  gayety  which  might  have  been  ex- 
pected of  people  eager  to  be  deceived.  Jules  had  involuntary 
suspicions ;  his  wife,  a  definite  dread.  And  yet,  feeling  sure 
of  each  other,  they  had  slept.  Was  the  embarrassment  due  to 
want  of  trust  ?  to  the  recollection  of  the  scene  in  the  night  ? 
They  themselves  could  not  tell.  But  they  loved  each  other, 
and  were  loved  so  sincerely,  that  the  bitter-sweet  impression 
could  not  fail  to  leave  its  traces;  and  each,  beside,  was  so 
anxious  to  be  the  first  to  efface  them,  to  be  the  first  to  return, 
that  they  could  not  but  remember  the  original  cause  of  a  first 
discord.  For  those  who  love,  vexation  is  out  of  the  question, 
and  pain  is  still  afar  off,  but  the  feeling  is  still  a  kind  of  mourn- 
ing, difficult  to  describe.  If  there  is  a  parallel  between  colors 
and  the  moods  of  the  mind  ;  if,  as  Locke's  blind  man  said, 
scarlet  produces  the  same  effect  on  the  eyes  as  the  blast  of  a 
trumpet  on  the  ears,  then  this  melancholy  reaction  may  be 
compared  with  sober  gray  tints.  Yet  saddened  love,  love 
conscious  of  its  real  happiness  beneath  the  momentary  trouble, 
knows  a  wholly  new  luxurious  blending  of  pain  and  pleasure. 
'Jules  dwelt  on  the  tones  of  his  wife's  voice,  and  watched  for 
her  glances  with  the  young  passion  that  stirred  him  in  the 
early  days  of  their  love  ;  and  memories  of  five  perfectly  happy 
years,  Clemence's  beauty,  her  artless  love,  soon  effaced  (for 
the  time)  the  last  pangs  of  an  intolerable  ache. 

It  was  Sunday.  There  was  no  Bourse  and  no  business. 
Husband  and  wife  could  spend  the  whole  day  together,  and 
each  made  more  progress  in  the  other's  heart  than  ever  before, 
as  two  children  in  a  moment's  terror  cling  closely  and  tightly 
together,  instinctively  united  against  danger.  Where  two 
have  but  one  life,  they  know  such  hours  of  perfect  happiness 
sent  by  chance,  flowers  of  a  day,  which  have  nothing  to  do 
with  yesterday  or  to-morrow. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  69 

To  Jules  and  Clemence  it  was  a  day  of  exquisite  enjoyment. 
They  might  almost  have  felt  a  dim  foreboding  that  this  was 
to  be  the  last  day  of  their  life  as  lovers.  What  name  can  be 
given  to  the  mysterious  impulse  which  hastens  the  traveler's 
steps  before  the  storm  has  given  warning? — it  fills  the  dying 
with  a  glow  of  life  and  beauty  a  few  days  before  the  end,  and 
sets  them  making  the  most  joyous  plans ;  it  counsels  the 
learned  man  to  raise  the  flame  of  the  midnight  lamp  when  it 
burns  most  brightly ;  it  wakens  a  mother's  fears  when  some 
keen-sighted  observer  looks  too  intently  at  her  child.  We  all 
feel  this  influence  in  great  crises  in  our  lives,  yet  we  have 
neither  studied  it  nor  found  a  name  for  it.  It  is  something 
more  than  a  presentiment,  something  less  than  vision. 

All  went  well  till  the  next  day.  It  was  Monday,  Jules 
Desmarets  was  obliged  to  be  at  the  Bourse  at  the  usual  time ; 
and,  according  to  his  custom,  he  asked  his  wife  before  he 
went  if  she  would  take  the  opportunity  of  driving  with  him. 

"  No,"  she  said  ;  "  the  weather  is  too  bad." 

And,  indeed,  it  was  pouring  with  rain.  It  was  about  half- 
past  two  o'clock.  M.  Desmarets  went  on  the  market,  and 
thence  to  the  Treasury.  At  four  o'clock,  when  he  came  out, 
he  confronted  M.  de  Maulincour,  who  was  waiting  for  him 
with  the  pertinacity  bred  of  hate  and  revenge. 

"  I  have  some  important  information  to  give  you,  sir,"  he 
said,  taking  Desmarets  by  the  arm.  "  Listen  to  me.  I  am 
an  honorable  man  ;  I  do  not  wish  to  send  anonymous  letters 
which  would  trouble  your  peace  of  mind  :  I  prefer  to  speak 
directly.  In  short,  you  may  believe  that  if  my  life  were  not 
at  stake,  I  should  never  interfere  between  husband  and  wife/ 
even  if  I  believed  that  I  had  a  right  so  to  do." 

"  If  you  are  going  to  say  anything  that  concerns  Madame 
Desmarets,"  answered  Jules,  "  I  beg  you  to  be  silent,  sir." 

"  If  I  keep  silence,  sir,  you  may  see  Madame  Jules  in  the 
dock  beside  a  convict  before  very  long.  Now,  am  I  to  be 
silent?" 


70  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Jules'  handsome  face  grew  white,  but  seemingly  he  was 
calm  again  in  a  moment.  He  drew  Maulincour  under  one 
of  the  porches  of  the  temporary  building  then  frequented  by 
stockbrokers,  and  spoke,  his  voice  unsteady  with  deep  emo- 
tion— 

"  I  am  listening,  sir,  but  there  will  be  a  duel  to  the  death 

between  us  if " 

"Oh!  I  am  quite  willing,"  exclaimed  M.  de  Maulincour. 
"  I  have  the  greatest  respect  for  you.  Do  you  speak  of  death, 
sir  ?  You  are  not  aware,  I  expect,  that  your  wife  probably 
employed  somebody  to  poison  me  on  Saturday  evening?  Yes, 
sir,  since  the  day  before  yesterday,  some  extraordinary  change 
has  taken  place  in  me.  All  the  hairs  of  my  head  distill  a  fever 
and  mortal  languor  that  pierces  through  the  bone  ;  and  I  know 
perfectly  well  what  man  it  was  that  touched  my  head  at  the 
dance.'' 

M.  de  Maulincour  told  the  whole  story  of  his  Platonic  love 
for  Mme.  Jules  and  the  details  of  the  adventure  with  which 
this  Scene  opens.  Anybody  would  have  listened  to  him  as 
attentively  as  Desmarets,  but  Mme.  Jules'  husband  might  be 
expected  to  be  more  astonished  than  anybody  else  in  the 
world.  And  here  his  character  showed  itself — he  was  more 
surprised  than  overwhelmed.  Thus  constituted  the  judge,  and 
the  judge  of  an  adored  wife,  in  his  inmost  mind  he  assumed  a 
judicial  directness  and  inflexibility  of  mind.  He  was  a  lover 
still ;  he  thought  less  of  his  own  broken  life  than  of  the  woman  ; 
he  heard,  not  his  own  grief,  but  a  far-off  voice  crying  to  him  : 
"  Clemence  could  not  lie !  Why  should  she  be  false  to 
you?" 

"  I  felt  certain  that  in  Monsieur  de  Funcal  I  recognized  this 
Ferragus,  whom  the  police  believe  to  be  dead,"  concluded  M. 
de  Maulincour,  "so  I  put  an  intelligent  man  on  his  track 
at  once.  As  I  went  home,  I  fortunately  chanced  to  call  to 
mind  a  Madame  Meynardie,  mentioned  in  this  Ida's  letter, 
Ida  being  apparently  my  persecutor's  mistress.  With  this  one 


THE    THIRTEEN.  71 

bit  of  information,  my  emissary  speedily  cleared  up  this 
ghastly  adventure,  for  he  is  more  skilled  at  finding  out  the 
truth  than  the  police  themselves." 

"I  am  unable  to  thank  you,  sir,  for  your  confidence,"  said 
Desmarets.  "  You  speak  of  proof  and  witnesses  ;  I  am  waiting 
for  them.  I  shall  not  flinch  from  tracking  down  the  truth  in 
this  extraordinary  business ;  but  you  will  permit  me  to  sus- 
pend my  judgment  until  the  case  is  proved  by  circumstantial 
evidence.  In  any  case,  you  shall  have  satisfaction,  for  you 
must  understand  that  we  both  require  it." 

Jules  went  home. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  his  wife.  "You  look  so  pale  you 
frighten  me  !  " 

"  It  is  a  cold  day,"  he  said,  as  he  walked  slowly  away  to 
the  bedroom,  where  everything  spoke  of  happiness  and  love, 
the  so  quiet  chamber  where  a  deadly  storm  was  brewing. 

"Have  you  been  out  to-day?"  he  asked,  with  seeming 
carelessness.  The  question,  no  doubt,  was  prompted  by  the 
last  of  a  thousand  thoughts,  which  had  gathered  unconsciously 
in  his  mind,  till  they  took  the  shape  of  a  single  lucid  reflec- 
tion, which  his  jealousy  brought  out  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment. 

"  No,"  she  answered,  and  her  voice  sounded  frank. 

Even  as  she  spoke,  Jules,  glancing  through  the  dressing- 
room  door,  noticed  drops  of  rain  on  the  bonnet  which  his 
wife  used  to  wear  in  the  morning.  Jules  was  a  violent- 
tempered  man,  but  he  was  likewise  extremely  sensitive;  he 
shrank  from  confronting  his  wife  with  a  lie.  And  yet  those 
drops  of  water  shed,  as  it  were,  a  gleam  of  light  which  tor- 
tured his  brain.  He  went  downstairs  to  the  porter's  room. 

"  Fouquereau,"  he  said,  when  he  had  made  sure  that  they 
were  alone,  "  three  hundred  francs  per  annum  to  you  if  you 
tell  me  the  truth  ;  if  you  deceive  me,  out  you  go ;  and  if  you 
mention  my  question  and  your  answer  to  any  one  else,  you 
will  get  nothing:  at  all." 


72  THE    THIRTEEN. 

He  stopped,  looked  steadily  at  the  man,  and  then  drawing 
him  to  the  light  of  the  window,  he  asked — 

"  Did  your  mistress  go  out  this  morning?" 

"  Madame  went  out  at  a  quarter  to  three,  and  I  think  I  saw 
her  come  in  again  half-an-hour  ago." 

"  Is  that  true,  upon  your  honor?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"You  shall  have  the  annual  sum  I  promised  you.  But  if 
you  mention  it,  remember  what  I  said ;  for  if  you  do,  you  lose 
it  all." 

Jules  went  back  to  his  wife. 

"Clemence,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  put  my  house  accounts 
a  bit  straight,  so  do  not  be  vexed  if  I  ask  you  something.  I 
have  let  you  have  forty  thousand  francs  this  year,  have  I  not?  " 

"More  than  that,"  she  answered.     "Forty-seven." 

"  Could  you  tell  me  exactly  how  it  was  spent?  " 

"  Why,  yes.  First  of  all,  there  were  several  outstanding 
bills  from  last  year " 

"I  shall  find  out  nothing  in  this  way,"  thought  Jules.  "  I 
have  gone  the  wrong  way  to  work." 

Just  at  that  moment  the  man  brought  in  a  note.  Jules 
opened  it  for  the  sake  of  appearances,  but  seeing  the  signature 
at  the  foot,  he  read  it  eagerly : 

"  MONSIEUR: — To  set  your  mind  and  our  minds  at  rest,  I 
take  the  step  of  writing  you,  although  I  have  not  the  privi- 
lege of  being  known  to  you;  but  my  position,  my  age,  and 
the  fear  that  some  misfortune  may  befall,  compels  me  to  be- 
seech your  forbearance  in  the  distressing  situation  in  which 
our  afflicted  family  is  placed.  For  some  days  past,  M.  Auguste 
de  Maulincour  has  shown  unmistakable  symptoms  of  mental 
derangement ;  and  we  are  afraid  that  he  may  disturb  your 
happiness  with  the  wild  fancies  of  which  he  spoke  to  M.  le 
Commandeur  de  Pamiers  and  to  me,  in  the  first  fit  of  fever. 
We  desire  to  give  you  warning  of  a  malady  which  is  still 


THE    THIRTEEN.  73 

curable,  no  doubt ;  and  as  it  might  have  very  serious  conse- 
quences for  the  honor  of  the  family  and  my  grandson's  future, 
I  count  upon  your  discretion.  If  M.  le  Commandcur  or  I, 
monsieur,  had  been  able  to  make  the  journey  to  your  house, 
we  should  have  dispensed  with  a  written  communication  ;  but 
you  will  comply,  I  do  not  doubt,  with  the  request  of  a  mother 
who  beseeches  you  to  burn  this  letter. 

"Permit  me  to  add  that  I  am  with  the  highest  regard, 
"BARONNE  DE  MAULINCOUR  nee  DE  RIEUX." 

"What  tortures!  "  exclaimed  Jules. 

"What  can  be  passing  in  your  thoughts?"  asked  his  wife, 
with  intense  anxiety  in  her  face. 

"  I  have  come  to  this  !  "  cried  Jules  ;  "  I  ask  myself  whether 
you  have  had  this  note  sent  to  me  to  dispel  my  suspicions. 
So  judge  what  I  am  suffering,"  he  added,  tossing  the  letter  to 
her. 

"The  unhappy  man,"  said  Mme.  Jules,  letting  the  sheet 
fall  ;  "  I  am  sorry  for  him,  though  he  has  given  me  a  great 
deal  of  pain." 

"  You  know  that  he  spoke  to  me  ?  " 

"Oh!  Did  you  go  to  see  him  when  you  had  given  your 
word  ?"  was  her  terror-stricken  answer. 

"  Clemence,  our  love  is  in  danger;  we  are  outside  all  the 
ordinary  laws  of  life,  so  let  us  leave  minor  considerations  in 
great  perils.  Now,  tell  me,  why  did  you  go  out  this  morn- 
ing? Women  think  they  are  privileged  to  tell  us  fibs  now 
and  again.  You  often  amuse  yourselves  with  preparing  pleas- 
ant surprises  for  us,  do  you  not  ?  Just  now  you  said  one 
thing  and  meant  another  no  doubt ;  you  said  a  '  No  '  for  a 
'Yes.'" 

He  brought  her  bonnet  out  of  the  dressing-room. 

"  Look  here  !  Without  meaning  to  play  the  Bartholo  here, 
your  bonnet  has  betrayed  you.  Are  these  not  rain-drops? 
Then  you  must  have  gone  out  and  caught  the  drops  of  rain  as 


74  THE    THIRTEEN. 

you  looked  about  for  a  cab,  or  in  coming  in  or  out  of  the 
house  to  which  you  drove.  Still,  a  woman  can  go  out  even 
if  she  has  told  her  husband  that  she  means  to  stay  indoors  ; 
there  is  no  harm  in  that.  There  are  so  many  reasons  for 
changing  one's  mind.  A  whim,  a  woman  has  a  right  to  be 
whimsical,  is  that  not  so  ?  You  are  not  bound  to  be  consist- 
ent with  yourselves.  Perhaps  you  forgot  something ;  some- 
thing to  be  done  for  somebody  else,  or  a  call,  or  a  charitable 
errand  ?  But  there  can  be  nothing  to  prevent  a  wife  from 
telling  her  husband  what  she  has  done.  How  should  one  ever 
blush  on  a  friend's  breast  ?  And  it  is  not  a  jealous  husband 
who  speaks,  my  Clemence ;  it  is  the  friend,  the  lover,  the 
comrade." 

He  flung  himself  passionately  at  her  feet. 

"  Speak,  not  to  justify  yourself,  but  to  soothe  an  intolerable 
pain.  I  know  for  certain  that  you  left  the  house.  Well, 
what  did  you  do  ?  Where  did  you  go  ?  " 

"Yes,  Jules,  I  left  the  house,"  she  said,  and  though  her 
voice  shook,  her  face  was  composed.  "  But  do  not  ask  me 
anything  more.  Wait  and  trust  me,  or  you  may  lay  up  life- 
long regrets  for  yourself.  Jules,  my  Jules,  trust  is  love's 
great  virtue.  I  confess  it,  I  am  too  much  troubled  to  answer 
you  at  this  moment ;  I  am  a  woman  inept  at  lying,  and  I 
love  you,  you  know  I  love  you." 

"With  all  that  shakes  a  man's  belief  and  rouses  his  jealousy 
— for  I  am  not  the  first  in  your  heart,  Clemence,  it  seems  ;  I 
am  not  your  very  self! — well,  with  it  all,  I  would  still  rather 
trust  you,  Clemence,  trust  your  voice  and  those  eyes  of  yours. 
If  you  are  deceiving  me,  you  would  deserve " 

"  Oh  !  a  thousand  deaths,"  she  broke  in. 

"  And  I  have  not  one  thought  hidden  from  you,  while " 

"Hush,"  she  cried,  "our  happiness  depends  upon  silence 
between  us." 

"Ah  !  I  will  know  all  !  "  he  shouted,  with  a  burst  of  vio- 
lent anger. 


THK    THIRTEEN.  75 

As  he  spoke  a  sound  reached  them,  a  shrill-tongued  woman's 
voice  raised  to  a  scream  in  the  antechamber. 

"  I  will  come  in,  I  tell  you  !  Yes,  I  will  come  in,  I  want 
to  see  her,  I  will  see  her !  "  somebody  cried. 

Jules  and  Clemencc  hurried  into  the  drawing-room,  and  in 
another  moment  the  door  was  flung  open.  A  young  woman 
suddenly  appeared  with  two  servants  behind  her. 

"This  woman  would  come  in,  sir,  in  spite  of  us.  We  told 
her  once  before  that  madame  was  not  at  home.  She  said  she 
knew  quite  well  that  madame  had  gone  out,  but  she  had  just 
seen  her  come  in.  She  threatens  to  stop  at  the  house-door 
until  she  has  spoken  to  madame." 

"You  can  go,"  said  M.  Desmarets,  addressing  the  ser- 
vants. 

"What  do  you  want,  mademoiselle?"  he  added,  turning 
to  the  visitor. 

The  "young  lady"  was  a  feminine  type  known  only  in 
Paris ;  a  type  as  much  a  product  of  the  city  as  the  mud  or  the 
curb-stones  in  the  streets,  or  the  Seine  water  which  is  filtered 
through  half  a  score  of  great  reservoirs  before  it  sparkles  clear 
and  pure  in  cut-glass  decanters,  all  its  muddy  sediment  left 
behind.  She  is,  moreover,  a  truly  characteristic  product. 
Pencil  and  pen  and  charcoal,  painter  and  caricaturist  and 
draughtsman,  have  caught  her  likeness  repeatedly;  yet  she 
eludes  analysis,  because  you  can  no  more  grasp  her  in  all  her 
moods  than  you  can  grasp  Nature,  or  the  fantastic  city  herself. 
Her  circle  has  but  one  point  of  contact  with  vice,  from  which 
the  rest  of  its  circumference  is  far  removed.  Yet  the  one 
flaw  in  her  character  is  the  only  trait  that  reveals  her ;  all  her 
fine  qualities  lie  out  of  sight  while  she  flaunts  her  ingenuous 
shamelessness.  The  plays  and  books  that  bring  her  before 
the  public,  with  all  the  illusion  that  clings  about  her,  give  but 
a  very  inadequate  idea  of  her ;  she  never  is,  and  never  will 
be,  herself  except  in  her  garret ;  elsewhere  she  is  either  worse 
or  better  than  she  really  is.  Give  her  wealth,  she  degenerates  ; 


76  THE    THIRTEEN. 

in  poverty  she  is  misconstrued.  How  should  it  be  otherwise? 
She  has  so  many  faults  and  so  many  virtues ;  she  lives  too 
close  to  a  tragic  end  in  the  river  on  the  one  hand,  and  a 
branding  laugh  upon  the  other ;  she  is  too  fair  and  too  foul ; 
too  much  like  a  personification  of  that  Paris  which  she 
provides  with  toothless  old  portresses,  washerwomen,  street- 
sweepers,  and  beggars ;  sometimes  too  with  insolent  coun- 
tesses and  admired  and  applauded  actresses  and  opera  singers. 
Twice  in  former  times  she  even  gave  two  queens,  in  all  but 
name,  to  the  Monarchy.  Who  could  seize  such  a  Protean 
woman-shape? 

She  is  a  very  woman,  less  than  a  woman,  and  more  than  a 
woman.  The  painter  of  contemporary  life  can  only  give  a 
few  details,  the  general  effect  of  so  vast  a  subject,  and  some 
idea  of  its  boundlessness. 

This  was  a  Paris  grisette — a  grisette,  however,  in  her  glory. 
She  was  the  grisette  that  drives  about  in  a  cab;  a  happy, 
handsome,  and  fresh  young  person,  but  still  a  grisette,  a 
grisette  with  claws  and  scissors;  bold  as  a  Spaniard,  quarrel- 
some as  an  English  prude  instituting  a  suit  for  restitution  of 
conjugal  rights,  coquettish  as  a  great  lady,  and  more  out- 
spoken;  equal  to  all  occasions,  a  typical  "lioness,"  issuing 
from  her  little  apartment. 

Many  and  many  a  time  she  had  dreamed  of  that  establish- 
ment with  its  red  cotton  curtains  and  its  furniture  covered 
with  Utrecht  velvet,  of  the  tea-table  and  the  hand-painted 
china  tea-service  and  the  settee ;  the  small  square  of  velvet- 
pile  carpet,  the  alabaster  timepiece  and  vases  under  glass 
shades,  the  yellow  bedroom,  the  soft  eiderdown  quilt — of  all 
the  joys  of  a  grisette's  life,  in  short.  Now  she  had  a  servant, 
a  superannuated  member  of  her  own  profession,  a  veteran 
grisette  with  mustaches  and  good-conduct  stripes.  Now  she 
went  to  the  theatres  and  had  as  many  sweetmeats  as  she  liked  ; 
she  had  silk  dresses  and  finery  to  soil  and  draggle,  and  all  the 
joys  of  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  milliner's  assistant, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  77 

except  a  carriage  of  her  own,  a  carriage  being  to  the  milliner's 
assistant's  dreams  what  the  marshal's  baton  is  for  the  private 
soldier.  Yes,  all  these  things  this  particular  grisette  possessed 
in  return  for  a  real  affection,  or  perhaps  in  spite  of  a  real 
affection  on  her  part ;  for  others  of  her  class  will  often  exact 
as  much  for  one  hour  in  the  day,  a  sort  of  toll  carelessly  paid 
for  by  a  brief  space  in  some  old  man's  clutches,  whom  she 
utili2es  as  her  banker. 

The  young  person  now  confronting  M.  and  Mme.  Jules 
wore  shoes,  which  displayed  so  much  white  stocking  that  they 
looked  like  an  almost  invisible  black  boundary  line  against 
the  carpet.  The  kind  of  foot-gear,  very  neatly  rendered  by 
French  comic  drawings,  is  one  of  the  Parisian  grisette's  pecu- 
liar charms  of  dress ;  but  a  still  more  unmistakable  sign  for 
observant  eyes  is  the  precision  with  which  her  gown  is  moulded 
to  her  figure,  which  is  very  clearly  outlined.  Moreover,  the 
visitor  was  "  turned  out  "  in  a  green  dress,  to  use  the  pictur- 
esque expression  coined  by  the  French  soldier,  a  dress  with  a 
chemisette,  which  revealed  a  fine  figure,  fully  displayed,  for 
her  Ternaux  shawl  would  have  slipped  down  to  the  floor  if  she 
had  not  held  the  two  loosely  knotted  ends  in  her  grasp.  She 
had  a  delicate  face,  a  white  skin  and  color  in  her  cheeks, 
sparkling  gray  eyes,  a  very  prominent  rounded  forehead,  and 
carefully  waved  hair,  which  escaped  from  under  a  little  bonnet, 
and  fell  in  large  curls  about  her  neck. 

"  My  name  is  Ida,  sir.  And  if  that  is  Madame  Jules  whom 
I  have  the  privilege  of  addressing,  I  have  come  to  tell  her  all 
that  I  have  against  her  on  my  mind.  It  is  a  shame,  when  she 
has  made  her  bargain,  and  has  such  furniture  as  you  have  here, 
to  try  to  take  away  the  man  to  whom  a  poor  girl  is' as  good  as 
married,  and  him  talking  of  making  it  all  right  by  marrying 
me  at  the  registry  office.  There's  quite  plenty  nice  young 
men  in  the  world — isn't  there,  sir? — for  her  to  fancy  without 
her  coming  and  taking  a  man  well  on  in  years  away  from  me 
when  I  am  happy  with  him.  Yah  !  I  haven't  a  fine  house,  I 


78  THE    THIRTEEN. 

haven't,  I  have  only  my  love  !  I  distcst  your  fine-looking 
men  and  money;  I  am  all  heart  and — " 

Mme.  Jules  turned  to  her  husband — 

"You  will  permit  me,  sir,  to  hear  no  more  of  this,"  said 
she,  and  went  back  to  her  room. 

"If  the  lady  is  living  with  you,  I  have  made  a  hash  of  it, 
so  far  as  I  can  see;  but  so  much  the  worser,"  continued  Ida. 
"What  business  has  she  to  come  and  see  Monsieur  Ferragus 
every  day?" 

"You  are  mistaken,  mademoiselle,"  said  Jules,  in  dull 
amazement ;  "  my  wife  could  not  possibly " 

"  Oh  !  so  you  are  married,  are  you,  the  two  of  you?"  said 
the  grisette,  evidently  rather  surprised.  "  Then  it's  far  worse, 
sir,  is  it  not,  when  a  woman  has  a  lawful  husband  of  her  own 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  man  like  Henri " 

"But  what  Henri?"  said  Jules,  taking  Ida  aside  into 
another  room  lest  his  wife  should  overhear  anything  further. 

"Well,  then,  Monsieur  Ferragus." 

"But  he  is  dead,"  protested  Jules. 

"What  stuff!  I  went  to  Franconi's  yesterday  evening, 
and  he  brought  me  home  again,  as  he  ought  to  do.  Your 
lady  too  can  give  you  news  of  him.  Didn't  she  go  to  see 
him  at  three  o'clock?  That  she  did,  I  know,  for  I  was  wait- 
ing for  her  in  the  street ;  being  as  a  very  nice  man,  Monsieur 
Justin — perhaps  you  know  him?  a  little  old  fogey  that  wears 
stays  and  has  seals  on  his  watchchain — it  was  he  that  told  me 
that  I  had  a  Madame  Jules  for  my  rival.  That  name,  sir,  is 
well  known  among  fancy  names ;  asking  your  pardon,  since 
it's  your  own,  but  Madame  Jules  might  be  a  duchess  at  Court, 
Henri  is  so  rich  he  can  afford  all  his  whims.  It  is  my  busi- 
ness to  look  after  my  own,  as  I  have  a  right  to  do ;  for  I  love 
Henri,  I  do.  Ke  was  my  first  fancy,  and  my  love  and  the 
rest  of  my  life  is  at  stake.  I  am  afraid  of  nothing,  sir;  I  am 
honest,  and  I  never  told  a  lie  yet,  nor  took  a  thing  belonging 
to  anybody  whatever.  If  I  had  an  empress  for  my  rival  I 


"YOU    ARE     MISTAKEN,     MADEMOISELLE,     MY     WIFE 
COULD     A'OT     POSSIBLY " 


TIfE    THIRTEEN  79 

should  go  right  straight  to  her,  and  if  she  took  my  husband 
that  is  to  be  from  me,  I  feel  that  I  could  kill  her,  was  she 
never  so  much  an  empress,  for  one  fine  woman  is  as  good  as 
another,  sir " 

"  That  will  do,  that  will  do  !  "  interrupted  Jules.  "  Where 
do  you  live?  " 

"Number  14  Rue  de  la  Corderie  du  Temple,  sir.  Ida 
Gruget,  corset-maker,  at  your  service,  sir ;  for  we  make  a  good 
many  corsets  for  gentlemen." 

"  And  this  man  Ferragus,  as  you  call  him,  where  docs  he 
live?" 

"  Why,  sir  "  (tightening  her  lips),  "  in  the  first  place,  he  is 
not  just  'a  man  ' — he  is  a  gentleman,  and  better  off  than  you 
are,  maybe.  But  what  makes  you  ask  me  for  his  address, 
when  your  wife  knows  where  he  lives?  He  told  me  I  was  not 
to  give  it  to  nobody.  Am  I  bound  to  give  you  an  answer? 
I  am  not  in  the  police  court  nor  the  confessional,  the  Lord 
be  thanked,  and  I  am  not  beholden  to  any  one." 

"And  how  if  I  offer  you  twenty,  thirty,  forty  thousand 
francs  to  tell  me  his  address?" 

"Oh,  not  quite,  my  little  dear;  it's  no  go,"  said  she,  with 
a  gesture  learned  in  the  streets,  as  accompaniment  to  her 
singular  answer.  "  No  amount  of  money  would  get  that  out 
of  me.  I  have  the  honor  to  wish  you  good-evening.  Which 
way  do  you  get  out  of  this?" 

Jules  allowed  her  to  go.  He  was  stricken  to  earth.  The 
whole  world  seemed  to  be  crumbling  away  under  him,  the 
sky  above  had  fallen  with  a  crash. 

"  Dinner  is  ready,  sir,"  said  the  footman. 

For  fifteen  minutes  the  footman  and  Desmarets*  manservant 
waited  in  the  dining-room,  but  no  one  appeared.  The  maid 
came  in  to  say  that  "the  mistress  would  not  take  dinner." 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter,  Josephine?"  asked  the  footman. 

"  I  don't  know.  The  mistress  is  crying,  and  she  is  going 
to  bed.  The  master  has  a  fancy  somewhere  else,  I  expect, 


8t  THE    THIRTEEN. 

and  it  has  been  found  out  at  an  awkward  time ;  do  you  un- 
derstand ?  I  would  not  answer  for  the  mistress"  life.  Men 
are^all  so  clumsy,  always  making  scenes  without  thinking  in 
the  least." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it,"  said  the  man,  lowering  his  voice  ;  "  on 
the  contrary,  it  is  the  mistress  who — in  short,  you  understand. 
What  time  could  the  master  have  for  gadding  about,  when  he 
hasn't  spent  a  night  out  these  five  years,  and  goes  down  to  his 
office  at  ten  o'clock,  and  only  comes  up  to  lunch  at  twelve  ? 
In  fact,  his  life  is  open  and  regular,  while  the  mistress  goes  off 
pretty  nearly  every  day  at  three  o'clock,  no  one  knows  where." 

"So  does  the  master,"  said  the  maid,  taking  her  mistress' 
part. 

"  But  he  goes  to  the  Bourse,  the  master  does.  This  is  the 
third  time  I  have  told  him  that  dinner  is  ready,"  he  added, 
after  a  pause ;  "  you  might  as  well  talk  to  a  statute" 

Jules  came  in. 

"Where  is  your  mistress?"  asked  he. 

"  Madame  has  gone  to  bed,  she  has  a  sick  headache,"  said 
the  maid,  assuming  an  important  air. 

'•'You  can  take  the  dinner  away,"  said  Jules,  with  much 
cool  self-possession.  "I  shall  keep madame  company. "  And 
he  went  to  his  wife.  She  was  crying,  and  stifling  her  sobs 
with  her  handkerchief. 

"Why  do  you  cry?"  said  Jules,  using  the  formal  vous. 
"You  have  no  violence,  no  reproaches,  to  expect  from  me. 
Why  should  I  avenge  myself?  If  you  have  not  been  faithful 
to  my  love,  it  is  because  you  were  not  worthy  of  it " 

"Not  worthy!  " 

The  words  repeated  amid  her  sobs,  and  the  tone  in  which 
they  were  spoken,  would  have  softened  any  man  but  Jules. 

"To  kill  you,  a  man  must  love  more,  perhaps,  than  I,"  he 
resumed;  "but  I  have  not  the  heart  to  do  it,  I  would  sooner 
make  away  with  myself  and  leave  you  to  your — your  happiness 
— and  to — whom ?" 


THE    THIRTEEN.  81 

He  broke  off. 

"  Make  away  with  yourself!  "  cried  Climence.  She  flung 
herself  at  Jules'  feet  and  clung  about  them;  but  he  tried  to 
shake  her  off,  and  dragged  her  to  the  bed. 

"  Leave  me  alone,"  said  he. 

"No,  no,  Jules !  If  you  love  me  no  longer,  I  shall  die. 
Do  you  wish  to  know  all?" 

"Yes."  Retook  her,  held  her  forcibly  in  his  grasp,  sat 
down  on  the  bedside,  and  held  her  between  his  knees ;  then 
he  gazed  dry-eyed  at  the  fair  face,  now  red  as  fire  and  seamed 
with  tear-stains.  "Now,  tell  me,"  he  said  for  the  second 
time. 

Clemence  began  to  sob  afresh. 

"  I  cannot.  It  is  a  secret  of  life  and  death.  If  I  told 
you,  I—  No,  I  cannot.  Have  pity,  Jules  !  " 

"You  are  deceiving  me  still,"  he  said,  but  he  replaced  the 
formal  vous  by  tu  (you  by  thou). 

"Ah  !  "  she  cried,  at  this  sign  of  relenting.  "Yes,  Jules, 
you  may  believe  that  I  am  deceiving  you,  now  you  shall  know 
everything  very  soon." 

"  But  this  Ferragus,  this  convict  that  you  go  to  see,  this 
man  enriched  by  crime,  if  he  is  not  your  lover,  if  you  are 
not  his " 

"Oh,  Jules  !  " 

"  Well,  is  he  your  unknown  benefactor,  the  man  to  whom 
we  owe  our  success,  as  people  have  said  before  this?  " 

"  Who  said  so  !  " 

"A  man  whom  I  killed  in  a  duel." 

"  Oh,  God  !  one  man  dead  already." 

"  If  he  is  not  your  protector,  if  he  does  not  give  you 
money,  and  you  take  money  to  him,  is  he  your  brother?" 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  and  if  he  were?  " 

M.  Desmarets  folded  his  arms. 

"  Why  should  this  have  been  kept  from  my  knowledge?" 
returned  he.  "  Did  you  both  deceive  me — you  and  your 
6 


82  THE    THIRTEEN. 

mother  ?  And  do  people  go  to  see  their  brothers  every  day, 
or  nearly  every  day,  eh  ?  " 

But  his  wife  fell  swooning  at  his  feet. 

He  pulled  the  bell-rope,  summoned  Josephine,  and  laid 
Clemence  on  the  bed. 

"  She  is  dead,"  he  thought,  "  and  how  if  I  am  wrong?  " 

"This  will  kill  me,"  murmured  Mme.  Jules,  as  she  came  to 
herself. 

"Josephine,"  exclaimed  M.  Desmarets,  "go  for  Monsieur 
Desplein ;  and  then  go  to  my  brother's  house  and  ask  him  to 
come  as  soon  as  possible." 

"Why  your  brother?"  asked  Clemence. 

But  Jules  had  already  left  the  room. 

For  the  first  time  in  five  years  Mme.  Jules  slept  alone  in 
her  bed,  and  was  obliged  to  allow  a  doctor  to  enter  the  sanc- 
tuary, two  troubles  that  she  felt  keenly. 

Desplein  found  Mme.  Jules  very  ill ;  never  had  violent 
emotion  been  worse  timed.  He  postponed  his  decision  on 
the  case  till  the  morrow,  and  left  diverse  prescriptions  which 
were  not  carried  out,  all  physical  suffering  was  forgotten  in 
heart  distress.  Daylight  was  at  hand,  and  still  Clemence  lay 
awake.  Her  thoughts  were  busy  with  the  murmur  of  conver- 
sation, which  lasted  for  several  hours,  between  the  others,  but 
no  single  word  reached  her  through  the  thickness  of  the  walls 
to  give  a  clue  to  the  meaning  of  the  prolonged  conference. 
M.  Desmarets,  the  notary,  went  at  length  ;  and  then,  in  the 
stillness  of  the  night,  with  a  strange  stimulation  of  the  senses 
that  comes  with  passion,  Clemence  could  hear  the  squeaking 
of  a  pen  and  the  unconscious  movements  made  by  some  one 
busily  writing.  Those  who  are  accustomed  to  sit  up  through 
the  night,  and  have  noticed  the  effect  of  deep  silence  on  the 
laws  of  acoustics,  know  that  a  faint  sound  at  intervals  is  easily 
heard,  when  a  continuous  and  even  murmur  is  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishable. 


THE   THIRTEEN.  83 

Clemence  rose,  anxious  and  trembling.  She  forgot  her 
condition,  forgot  that  she  was  damp  with  perspiration,  and, 
barefooted  and  without  a  dressing-gown,  went  across  and 
opened  the  door.  Luckily  it  turned  noiselessly  on  its  hinges. 
She  saw  her  husband,  pen  in  hand,  sitting  fast  asleep  in  his 
easy-chair.  The  candles  were  burning  low  in  the  sockets. 
She  crept  forward,  and  on  an  envelope  that  lay  sealed  already 
she  saw  the  words:  "  My  Will." 

She  knelt  down,  as  if  at  a  graveside,  and  kissed  her  hus- 
band's hand.  He  woke  at  once. 

"Jules,  dear,  even  criminals  condemned  to  death  are  given 
a  few  days'  respite,"  she  said,  looking  at  him  with  eyes 
shining  with  love  and  fever.  "Your  innocent  wife  asks  for 
two  days — only  two  days.  Leave  me,  then,  free  for  two  days, 
and — wait.  After  that  I  shall  die  happy  ;  at  any  rate,  you  will 
be  sorry." 

"  You  shall  have  the  delay,  Clemence." 

And  while  she  kissed  her  husband's  hands  in  a  pathetic 
outpouring  of  her  heart,  Jules,  fascinated  by  that  cry  of  inno- 
cence, took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead, 
utterly  ashamed  that  he  should  still  submit  to  the  power  of 
that  noble  beauty. 

Next  morning,  after  a  few  hours  of  sleep,  Jules  went  to  his 
wife's  room,  mechanically  obedient  to  his  custom  of  never 
leaving  home  without  first  seeing  her.  Clemence  was  asleep. 
A  ray  of  light  from  a  chink  in  the  highest  window  fell  on  the 
face  of  a  woman  worn  out  with  grief.  Sorrow  had  left  traces 
on  her  brow  already,  and  faded  the  fresh  red  of  her  lips.  A 
lover's  eyes  could  not  mistake  the  significance  of  the  dark 
marbled  streaks  and  the  pallor  of  illness,  which  took  the  place 
of  the  even  color  in  her  cheeks  and  the  white  velvet  of  her 
skin,  the  transparent  surface  over  which  all  the  feelings  that 
stirred  that  fair  soul  so  unconsciously  flitted. 

"She  is  not  well,"  thought  Jules.  "Poor  Clemence,  may 
God  protect  us  !  " 


84  THE    THIRTEEN. 

He  kissed  her  very  gently  on  the  forehead ;  she  awoke, 
looked  into  her  husband's  face,  and  understood.  She  could 
not  speak,  but  she  took  his  hand,  and  her  eyes  grew  soft  with 
tears. 

"I  am  innocent,"  she  said,  finishing  her  dream. 

"You  will  not  go  out  to-day,  will  you?  "  said  Jules. 

"  No ;  I  feel  too  weak  to  get  up." 

"If  you  change  your  mind,  wait  till  I  come  home,"  said 
Jules,  and  he  went  down  to  the  porter's  lodge. 

"  Fouquereau,  you  must  keep  a  strict  watch  to-day,"  he 
said.  "  I  wish  to  know  every  one  who  comes  in  or  out.." 

With  that,  Jules  sprang  into  a  cab,  bade  the  man  drive  to 
the  Hotel  de  Maulincour,  and  asked  for  the  baron. 

"Monsieur  is  ill,"  was  the  reply. 

Jules  insisted,  and  sent  in  his  name.  If  he  could  not  see 
M.  de  Maulincour,  he  would  see  the  vidame  or  the  dowager. 
He  waited  for  some  time  in  the  old  baroness'  drawing-room  ; 
she  came  at  last,  however,  to  say  that  her  grandson  was  far 
too  ill  to  see  him. 

"I  know  the  nature  of  his  illness,  madame,"  said  Jules, 
"  from  the  letter  which  you  did  me  the  honor  to  send,  and  I 
entreat  you  to  believe " 

"A  letter,  monsieur?  A  letter  that  I  sent  to  you?"  broke 
in  the  baroness.  "I  have  not  written  a  word.  And  what 
am  I  supposed  to  say,  monsieur,  in  this  letter?" 

"Madame,  as  I  meant  to  call  on  Monsieur  de  Maulincour 
this  very  day,  and  to  return  the  note  to  you,  I  thought  I  need 
not  destroy  it  in  spite  of  the  request  at  the  end.  Here  it  is." 

The  dowager  rang  for  her  double-strength  spectacles,  and 
glanced  down  the  sheet  with  every  sign  of  the  greatest  aston- 
ishment. 

"  The  handwriting  is  so  exactly  like  mine,  monsieur,  that 
if  we  were  not  speaking  of  a  quite  recent  event,  I  should  be 
deceived  by  it  myself.  My  grandson  certainly  is  ill,  mon- 
sieur, but  his  mind  has  not  been  affected  the  least  bit  in  the 


THE    Tit  IK  TEEN.  85 

world.  We  are  puppets  in  the  hands  of  wicked  people  ;  still, 
I  cannot  guess  the  object  of  this  piece  of  impertinence.  You 
shall  see  my  grandson,  monsieur,  and  you  will  admit  that  he 
is  perfectly  sane." 

She  rang  the  bell  again  to  ask  if  it  were  possible  for  the 
baron  to  receive  a  visit  from  M.  Desmarets.  The  footman 
brought  an  answer  in  the  affirmative.  Jules  went  up  to 
Auguste  de  Maulincour's  room,  and  found  that  young  officer 
seated  in  an  armchair  by  the  fireside.  He  was  too  weak  to 
rise,  and  greeted  his  visitor  with  a  melancholy  inclination 
of  the  head.  The  Vidame  de  Pamiers  was  keeping  him  com- 
pany. 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron,"  began  Jules,  "I  have  something  to 
say  of  so  private  a  nature  that  I  should  wish  to  speak  with  you 
alone." 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Auguste,  "  Monsieur  le  Commandeur 
knows  all  about  this  affair  ;  you  need  not  fear  to  speak  before 
him." 

"  Monsieur  le  'Baron,  you  have  disturbed  and  almost  de- 
stroyed my  happiness  ;  and  you  had  no  right  to  do  so.  Until 
we  know  which  of  us  must  ask  or  give  satisfaction  to  the 
other,  you  are  bound  to  give  me  your  assistance  in  the  dark 
ways  to  which  you  have  suddenly  brought  me.  So  I  have 
come  to  inquire  the  present  address  of  this  mysterious  being 
who  exercises  such  an  unlucky  influence  on  our  lives,  and  seems 
to  have  some  supernatural  power  at  his  orders.  I  received  this 
letter  yesterday,  just  as  I  came  in  after  hearing  your  account 
of  yourself." 

Jules  handed  the  forged  letter. 

"This  Ferragus  or  Bourignard  or  Monsieur  de  Funcal  is  a 
fiend  incarnate!"  shouted  Maulincour.  "In  what  hideous 
labyrinth  have  I  set  foot?  Whither  am  I  going?  I  was 
wrong,  monsieur,"  he  added,  looking  full  at  Jules,  "  but  death 
surely  is  the  greatest  expiation  of  all,  and  I  am  dying.  So 
you  can  ask  me  anything  you  wish  ;  I  am  at  your  service." 


86  THE    THIRTEEN. 

'•'You  should  know  where  this  strange  man  lives;  I  abso- 
lutely must  get  to  the  bottom  of  this  mystery,  if  it  costs  me 
all  that  I  have  ;  and  with  such  a  cruelly  ingenious  enemy  every 
moment  is  precious." 

"Justin  will  tell  us  all  about  it  directly,"  replied  the 
baron.  The  vidame  fidgeted  upon  his  chair.  Auguste  rang 
the  bell. 

"Justin  is  not  in  the  house,"  exclaimed  the  vidame  in  a 
hasty  fashion,  which  said  a  good  deal  more  than  the  words. 

"  Well,"  Auguste  said  quickly,  "and  if  he  is  not,  our  ser- 
vants here  know  where  he  is.  A  man  on  horseback  shall  go  at 
once  to  find  him.  Your  servant  is  in  Paris,  is  he  not  ?  They 
will  find  him  somewhere." 

The  old  Vidame  de  Pamiers  was  visibly  troubled. 

"Justin  will  not  come,  dear  fellow,"  he  said.  "I  wanted 
to  keep  the  accident  from  your  knowledge,  but " 

"Is  he  dead?"  exclaimed  M.  de  Maulincour.  "And 
when?  and  how?  " 

"  It  happened  yesterday  night.  He  went  out  to  supper 
with  some  old  friends,  and  got  drunk,  no  doubt ;  his  friends, 
being  also  the  worse  for  wine,  must  have  left  him  to  lie  in  the 
street ;  a  heavy  carriage  drove  right  over  him ' 

"The  convict  did  not  fail  that  time;  he  killed  his  man  at 
the  first  attempt,"  said  Auguste.  "  He  was  not  so  lucky  with 
me  ;  he  had  to  try  four  times." 

Jules  grew  moody  and  thoughtful. 

"  So  I  shall  find  out  nothing,  it  seems,"  he  exclaimed,  after 
a  long  pause.  "Perhaps  your  man  was  rightly  served;  he 
went  beyond  your  orders  when  he  slandered  Madame  Des- 
marets  to  one  '  Ida,'  to  stir  up  the  girl's  jealousy  and  let  her 
loose  upon  us." 

""'Ah,  monsieur,  in  my  fury  I  gave  over  Madame  Jules  to 
him." 

"  Sir  !  "  exclaimed  Mme.  Jules'  husband,  stung  to  the  quick; 
but  Maulincour  silenced  him  with  a  wave  of  the  hand. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  87 

"  Oh  !  now  I  am  prepared  for  all  that  may  happen.  What 
is  done  is  done,  and  you  will  do  no  better ;  nor  can  you  say 
anything  that  my  own  conscience  has  not  told  me  already. 
I  am  expecting  the  most  famous  specialist  in  toxicology  to 
learn  my  fate.  If  the  pain  is  likely  to  be  intolerable,  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  ;  I  shall  blow  my  brains  out." 

"  You  are  talking  like  a  boy,"  cried  the  old  vidame,  aghast 
at  the  baron's  coolness.  "  Your  g-andmother  would  die  of 
grief!" 

"And  so,  monsieur,  there  is  no  way  of  finding  out  in  what 
part  of  Paris  this  extraordinary  man  lives?"  asked  Monsieur 
Jules. 

"  I  think,  monsieur,  that  I  heard  this  poor  Justin  say  that 
Monsieur  de  Funcal  was  to  be  found  at  the  Portuguese  or 
else  the  Brazilian  embassy,"  said  the  vidame.  "Monsieur 
de  Funcal  is  of  a  good  family ;  he  belongs  to  both  countries. 
As  for  the  convict,  he  is  dead  and  buried.  Your  persecutor, 
whoever  he  may  be,  is  so  powerful,  it  seems  to  me,  that  you 
had  better  accept  him  in  his  new  metamorphosis  until  you  are 
in  a  position  to  overwhelm  him  with  confusion  and  crush 
him  ;  but  set  about  it  prudently,  my  dear  sir.  If  Monsieur 
de  Maulincour  had  taken  my  advice,  nothing  of  all  this  would 
have  happened." 

Jules  withdrew,  coolly  but  politely.  He  was  at  his  wits'  end 
to  find  Ferragus.  As  he  came  in,  the  porter  came  out  to  in- 
form him  that  madame  had  gone  out  to  put  a  letter  into  the 
box  opposite  the  Rue  de  Menars.  J^es  felt  humiliated  by  the 
profound  intelligence  with  which  the  man  aided  and  abetted 
his  scheme,  and  by  the  very  skill  with  which  he  found  means 
to  serve  him.  The  zeal  and  peculiar  ingenuity  which  in- 
feriors will  show  to  compromise  their  betters,  when  their  bet- 
ters compromise  themselves,  were  well  known  to  Jules,  and 
he  appreciated  the  danger  of  having  such  accomplices  in  any 
affair  whatsoever ;  but  he  had  forgotten  his  personal  dignity 
till  he  suddenly  saw  how  far  he  had  fallen.  What  a  triumph 


88  THE    THIRTEEN. 

for  a  serf,  unable  to  rise  to  his  master,  to  bring  that  master 
down  to  his  own  level ! 

Jules  was  stern  and  abrupt  with  the  man.  Another  blunder. 
But  he  was  so  wretched  !  His  life,  till  then  so  straight  and 
clean,  had  grown  crooked  ;  and  now  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  to  use  craft  and  lies.  And  Clemence,  too,  was  using  lies 
and  craft  with  him.  It  was  a  sickening  moment.  Lost  in 
depths  of  bitter  thought,  he  stood  forgetful  of  himself  and 
motionless  on  the  door-step.  Sometimes  he  gave  way  to  de- 
spair which  counseled  flight ;  he  would  leave  France  and 
carry  with  him  his  love  and  all  the  illusions  of  unproved 
guilt;  and  then  again,  never  doubting  but  that  Clemence's 
letter  was  addressed  to  Ferragus,  he  cast  about  for  ways  of  in- 
tercepting the  reply  sent  by  that  mysterious  being.  Again, 
examining  into  his  singular  success  since  his  marriage,  he 
asked  himself  whether  that  slander  which  he  had  avenged  was 
not  after  all  a  truth.  At  length,  returning  to  Ferragus' 
answer,  he  reasoned  with  himself  on  this  wise : 

"But  will  this  Ferragus,  so  profoundly  astute  as  he  is,  so 
consequent  in  the  least  things  that  he  does ;  this  man  who 
sees,  and  foresees,  and  calculates,  and  even  guesses  our 
thoughts,  will  he  send  an  answer?  Is  he  not  sure  to  em- 
ploy some  means  in  keeping  with  his  power?  Can  he  not 
send  a  reply  by  some  ingenious  scoundrel,  or,  more  likely 
still,  in  a  jewel  case  brought  by  some  unsuspecting,  honest 
creature,  or  in  a  parcel  with  a  pair  of  shoes  which  some  work- 
ing-girl, in  all  innocence,  brings  home  for  my  wife?  Sup- 
pose that  there  should  be  an  understanding  between  him  and 
Clemence?" 

He  could  trust  nothing  and  nobody.  He  made  a  hurried 
survey  of  the  boundless  field,  the  shoreless  sea  of  conjecture ; 
and  after  drifting  hither  and  thither,  and  in  every  possible 
direction,  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  was  stronger  in  his  own 
house  than  anywhere  else ;  so  he  resolved  to  stay  at  home  and 
watch  like  an  ant-lion  at  the  bottom  of  its  funnel  in  the  sand. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  89 

"  Fouquereau,"  he  said,  "  if  any  one  asks  for  me,  I  am  not 
at  home.  But  if  any  one  wishes  to  speak  with  madame,  or 
brings  anything  for  her,  ring  twice.  And  you  must  let  me 
see  every  letter  left  here,  no  matter  to  whom  it  is  addressed. 
And  so,"  he  thought  within  himself,  as  he  went  into  his  office 
on  the  entresol,  "  and  so  I  shall  outwit  Master  Ferragus. 
And  if  his  messenger  is  cunning  enough  to  ask  for  me,  so  as 
to  find  out  whether  madame  is  alone,  at  any  rate  I  shall  not 
be  gulled  like  a  fool." 

His  office  windows  looked  into  the  street.  As  he  stood 
with  his  face  pressed  against  the  panes,  jealousy  inspired  him 
with  a  final  stratagem.  He  determined  to  send  his  head-clerk 
to  the  Bourse  in  his  carriage  ;  the  clerk  should  take  a  letter 
to  a  friend  of  his,  another  stockbroker,  to  whom  he  would 
explain  his  business  transactions — he  would  beg  his  friend  to 
take  his  place.  His  most  difficult  business  he  put  off  till  the 
morrow,  regardless  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  stocks,  and  all  the 
funds  of  Europe.  Fair  prerogative  of  love  !  Love  eclipses 
all  things  else.  The  rest  of  the  world  fades  away  before  it  ; 
and  altar,  throne,  and  government  securities  are  as  though 
they  were  not.  At  half-past  three  o'clock,  just  when  the 
Bourse  is  all  agog  with  rates  and  premiums,  rises  and  falls, 
current  accounts,  and  the  rest  of  it,  Jules  looked  up  and  saw 
Fouquereau  with  a  beaming  countenance. 

"An  old  woman  has  just  been  here,  sir  ;  she  is  as  sharp  as 
they  make  them.  Oh  !  she  is  an  artful  one,  I  can  tell  you. 
She  asked  for  you,  and  seemed  put  out  to  find  you  were  not 
at  home  ;  then  she  gave  me  this  letter  here  for  madame." 

Jules  broke  the  seal  with  fevered  anguish,  but  he  dropped 
exhausted  into  his  chair.  The  letter  was  a  string  of  meaning- 
less words,  and  quite  unintelligible  without  a  key.  It  was 
written  in  cipher. 

"You  can  go,  Fouquereau." 

The  man  went. 

"This  mystery  is  deeper  than   the  unplumbed  sea.     Oh, 


90  THE    THIRTEEN. 

this  is  love  beyond  a  doubt.  Love,  and  love  only,  could  be 
as  sagacious,  as  ingenious  as  the  writer  of  this  letter.  Oh, 
God  !  I  will  kill  Clemence." 

Even  at  that  moment  a  bright  idea  burst  upon  his  brain, 
and  struck  him  so  forcibly,  that  it  seemed  almost  like  the 
breaking  out  of  light.  In  the  old  days  of  poverty  and  hard 
work  before  his  marriage,  Jules  had  made  a  real  friend.  The 
excessive  delicacy  with  which  Jules  spared  the  susceptibilities 
of  a  poor  and  shy  comrade,  the  respect  that  he  paid  his  friend, 
the  tactful  ingenuity  with  which  he  made  that  friend  accept  a. 
share  of  his  good  fortune  without  a  blush — all  these  things 
had  increased  their  friendship  since  those  days.  In  spite  of 
Desmarets'  prosperity,  Jacquet  was  faithful  to  him. 

Jacquet,  an  honest  man,  and  a  toiler  of  austere  life,  had 
slowly  made  his  way  in  that  department  which  of  all  others 
employs  most  rascality  and  most  honesty.  He  was  in  the 
Foreign  Office  ;  the  most  delicate  part  of  its  archives  was  in 
his  charge.  He  was  a  kind  of  departmental  glow-worm, 
shedding  light  during  his  working  hours  on  secret  correspond- 
ence, deciphering  and  classifying  dispatches.  Rather  above 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  middle-classes,  he  held  the  highest 
(subaltern)  post  at  the  Foreign  Office,  and  lived  unrecognized  ; 
rejoicing  in  an  obscurity  which  put  him  beyond  reverses  of 
fortune,  and  content  to  pay  his  debt  to  his  fatherland  in  small 
coin.  A  born  assistant-registrar,  he  enjoyed  the  respect  that 
was  due  to  him,  in  newspaper  language.  And,  as  an  unknown 
patriot  in  a  Government  Department,  he  resigned  himself  to 
groan,  by  his  fireside,  over  the  aberrations  of  the  Government 
that  he  served.  His  position,  thanks  to  Jules,  had  been  im- 
proved by  a  suitable  marriage.  In  his  own  home,  Jacquet 
was  a  debonair  king,  a  "  man  with  an  umbrella,"  as  they  say, 
who  hired  a  carriage  for  his  wife  which  he  never  entered  him- 
self; and  as  a  final  touch  to  this  portrait  of  an  unconscious 
philosopher,  it  should  be  added  that  he  had  never  yet  sus- 
pected, and  never  would  suspect,  how  much  he  might  make 


THE    THIRTEEN.  91 

out  of  his  position,  with  a  stockbroker  for  his  intimate  friend, 
and  a  knowledge  of  State  secrets.  A  hero  after  the  manner 
of  that  unknown  private  soldier  who  died  to  save  Napoleon 
with  a  cry  of  "Who  goes  there?"  he  was  faithful  to  his  De- 
partment. 

In  another  ten  minutes  Jules  stood  in  Jacquct's  private 
office.  His  friend  brought  forward  a  chair,  laid  his  green  silk 
eye-shade  down  methodically  upon  the  table,  rubbed  his 
hands,  took  out  his  snuff-box,  rose  to  his  feet,  threw  out  his 
chest  with  a  crack  of  the  shoulder-blades,  and  said — 

"What  chance  brings  you  here,  Mo'sieur  Desmarets? 
What  do  you  want  with  me?" 

"  I  want  you  to  find  out  a  secret  for  me,  Jacquet ;  it  is  a 
matter  of  life  and  death." 

"  It  is  not  about  politics?" 

"You  are  not  the  man  I  should  come  to  if  I  wanted  to 
know  anything  of  that  kind,"  said  Jules.  "  No,  it  is  a  private 
affair,  and  I  must  ask  you  to  keep  it  as  secret  as  possible." 

"Claude-Joseph  Jacquet,  professional  mute.  Why,  don't 
you  know  me?"  laughed  he.  "My  line  of  business  is  dis- 
cretion." 

Jules  put  the  letter  before  him. 

"  This  is  addressed  to  my  wife  ;  I  must  have  it  read  to  me," 
he  said. 

"The  devil!  the  devil!  a  bad  business,"  said  Jacquet, 
scrutinizing  the  document  as  a  money-lender  examines  a 
negotiable  bill.  "  Aha  !  a  stencil  cipher.  Wait !  " 

He  left  Jules  alone  in  the  office,  but  came  back  pretty  soon. 

"Tomfoolery,  my  friend.  It  is  written  with  an  old  stencil 
cipher  which  the  Portuguese  ambassador  used  in  Monsieur  de 
Choiseul's  time  after  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits.  Stay,  look 
here." 

Jacquet  took  up  a  sheet  of  paper  with  holes  cut  in  it  at 
regular  intervals ;  it  looked  rather  like  the  lace  paper  which 
confectioners  put  over  their  sugar-plums.  When  this  was  se< 


92  THE    THIRTEEN. 

over  the  sheet  below,  Jules  could  easily  make  sense  of  the 
words  left  uncovered  : 

"  MY  DEAR  CLEMENCE  : — Do  not  trouble  yourself  any  more ; 
no  one  shall  trouble  our  happiness  again,  and  your  husband 
will  put  his  suspicions  aside.  I  cannot  go  to  see  you.  How- 
ever ill  you  may  be,  you  must  gather  up  your  courage  to  come 
to  me ;  summon  up  your  strength,  love  will  give  it  to  you. 
I  have  been  through  a  most  cruel  operation  for  your  sake,  and 
I  cannot  stir  out  of  bed.  Moxas  were  applied  yesterday  even- 
ing to  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  across  the  shoulders ;  it  was 
necessary  to  cauterize  pretty  deeply.  Do  you  understand  ? 
But  I  thought  of  you,  and  found  the  pain  not  intolerable.  I 
have  left  the  sheltering  roof  of  the  Embassy  to  baffle  Maulin- 
cour,  who  shall  not  persecute  us  much  longer ;  and  here  I  am 
safe  from  all  search  at  Number  12  Rue  des  Enfants-Rouges, 
with  an  old  woman,  one  Mme.  Etienne  Gruget,  mother  of 
that  Ida,  who  shall  shortly  pay  dear  for  her  silly  prank.  Come 
to-morrow  at  nine  o'clock.  My  room  can  only  be  reached  by 
an  inner  staircase.  Ask  for  M.  Camuset.  Adieu  till  to- 
morrow. I  kiss  thy  forehead,  my  darling." 

Jacquet  gazed  at  Jules  with  a  kind  of  shocked  expression 
with  a  very  real  sympathy  in  it,  and  brought  out  his  favorite 
invocation:  "The  devil!  the  devil!"  in  two  distinct  into- 
nations. 

"It  seems  clear  to  you,  doesn't  it?"  said  Jules.  "Well, 
and  yet,  in  the  bottom  of  my  heart  a  voice  pleads  for  my  wife, 
and  that  voice  rises  above  all  the  pangs  of  jealousy.  I  shall 
endure  the  most  horrid  torture  until  to-morrow ;  but  at  last, 
to-morrow  between  nine  and  ten,  I  shall  know  all.  I  shall 
either  be  wretched  or  happy  for  life.  Think  of  me,  Jacquet." 

"  I  will  be  at  your  house  at  eight  o'clock.  We  will  go 
yonder  together.  I  will  wait  outside  in  the  street  for  you,  if 
you  like.  There  may  be  risks  to  run  ;  you  ought  to  have 


THE    THIRTEEN.  93 

some  one  you  can  trust  within  call,  a  sure  hand  that  can  take 
a  hint.  Count  upon  me." 

"  Even  to  help  me  to  kill  a  man  ?  " 

"The  devil!  the  devil!"  Jacquet  said  quickly,  repeating, 
so  to  speak,  the  same  musical  note.  "  I  have  two  children  and 
a  wife " 

Jules  squeezed  Claude  Jacquet's  hand  and  went  out.  But 
he  came  back  in  haste. 

"I  am  forgetting  the  letter,"  said  he.  "And  that  is  not 
all ;  it  must  be  sealed  again." 

"  The  devil !  the  devil !  you  opened  it  without  taking  an 
impression  ;  but,  luckily,  the  edge  of  the  fracture  is  pretty 
clean.  There,  let  me  have  it,  I  will  give  it  you  back  again 
sfcum/um  scnpturam  (according  to  the  Scriptures)." 

"When?" 

"  By  half-past  five " 

"  If  I  am  not  in,  simply  give  it  to  the  porter,  and  tell  him 
to  send  it  up  to  madame." 

"  Do  you  want  me  to-morrow?" 

"No.      Farewell." 

Jules  soon  reached  the  Place  de  la  Rotonde  du  Temple,  dis- 
missed his  cabriolet,  and  walked  down  to  the  Rue  des  Enfants- 
Rouges,  to  take  a  look  at  Mme.  Etienne  Gruget's  abode.  The 
mystery  on  which  so  many  lives  hung  was  to  be  cleared  up 
there.  Ferragus  was  there,  and  Ferragus  held  all  the  ends  of 
the  threads  in  this  obscure  business.  Was  not  the  connection 
between  Mme.  Jules,  her  husband,  and  this  man  the  Gordian 
knot  of  a  tragedy  stained  even  now  with  blood  ?  Nor  should 
the  blade  be  wanting  to  cut  asunder  the  tightest  of  all  bonds. 

The  house  belonged  to  the  class  commonly  known  as  caba- 
joutis — an  expressive  name  given  by  working  people  in  Paris 
to  patchwork  buildings,  as  they  may  be  called.  Several 
houses,  originally  separate,  have  some  time  been  run  into  one, 
according  to  the  fancy  of  the  various  proprietors  who  succes- 
sively enlarged  them  ;  or  they  were  begun  and  left  unfinished 


94  THE    THIRTEEN. 

for  a  time,  and  afterward  resumed  and  completed.  Unlucky 
dwellings  are  they  that  have  passed,  like  sundry  nations,  under 
the  rule  of  several  dynasties  of  capricious  rulers.  The  various 
stories  and  the  windows  do  not  belong  to  each  other,  to  borrow 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  of  painter's  words ;  every  detail, 
even  the  decorations  outside,  clashes  with  the  rest  of  the  build- 
ing. The  cabajoutis  is  to  Parisian  street  architecture  what  the 
capharnaiim,  or  lumber-room,  is  to  the  house — a  regular  rub- 
bish-heap, where  the  most  unlikely  things  are  shot  down  to- 
gether pell-mell. 

"  Mme.  Etienne  ?  "  Jules  asked  of  the  portress. 

That  functionary  was  installed  in  the  great  centre  doorway 
in  a  sort  of  hencoop,  a  little  wooden  house  on  wheels,  not 
unlike  the  cabins  which  the  police  authorities  put  up  at  every 
cabstand. 

"Eh?"  said  the  portress,  laying  down  the  stocking  which 
she  was  knitting.  The  living  accessories  which  contribute  to 
the  general  effect  of  any  portion  of  the  great  monster,  Paris,  fit 
in,  as  a  rule,  remarkably  well  with  the  character  of  their  sur- 
roundings. The  porter,  janitor,  concierge,  Swiss,  or  what- 
ever you  may  choose  to  call  this  indispensable  muscle  in  the 
monster's  economy,  is  always  in  keeping  with  the  quarter  of 
which  he  is  an  integral  part ;  very  often  he  is  the  Quarter  in- 
carnate. The  concierge  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  an 
idle  being  embroidered  at  every  seam,  speculates  in  stocks  and 
shares;  in  the  Chaussee  d'Antin,  the  porter  is  a  comfortable 
personage  ;  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Bourse,  he  reads  the 
newspaper ;  in  the  Faubourg  Montmartre,  he  carries  on  some 
industry  or  other.  In  low  neighborhoods  the  portress  is  a 
worn-out  prostitute ;  in  the  Marais  she  keeps  herself  respect- 
able, she  is  apt  to  be  peevish  and  cross-grained,  she  has  her 
"ways." 

At  sight  of  Jules,  the  portress  of  the  Rue  des  Enfants- 
Rouges  stirred  up  the  dying  embers  of  block  fuel  in  her  foot- 
warmer,  taking  a  knife  for  the  purpose.  Then  she  said : 


THE    THIRTEEN.  95 

"You  want  Madame  Etienne;  do  you  mean  Madame  fitiennc 
Gruget?" 

"Yes,"  said  Jules  Desmarcts,  with  a  touch  of  vexation. 

"  She  that  works  at  trimmings?  " 

"Yes." 

"Very  well,  sir,"  and,  emerging  from  her  cage,  she  laid  a 
hand  on  Jules'  arm  and  drew  him  to  the  farther  end  of  a  long 
narrow  passage,  vaulted  like  a  cellar ;  "  you  go  up  the  second 
staircase  opposite,  just  across  the  yard.  Do  you  see  the  win- 
dows with  the  wallflowers  ?  That's  where  Madame  Etienne 
lives." 

''Thank  you,  madame.     Is  she  alone,  do  you  think?" 

"  Why  shouldn't  she  be  alone  when  she  is  a  lone  woman  ?  " 

Jules  sprang  noiselessly  up  a  very  dark  staircase,  every  step 
incrusted  with  dried  lumps  of  mud  deposited  by  the  lodgers' 
boots.  He  found  three  doors  on  the  second  floor,  but  no  sign 
of  wallflowers.  Luckily  for  him,  some  words  were  written 
in  chalk  on  the  grimiest  and  greasiest  of  the  three — Ida  will 
be  back  at  nine  o1  clock  to-night. 

"  Here  it  is,"  said  Jules  to  himself. 

He  tugged  at  an  old  blackened  bell-pull,  with  a  fawn's  foot 
attached,  and  heard  the  smothered  tinkle  of  a  little  cracked 
bell,  and  the  yapping  of  an  asthmatic  little  dog.  He  could 
tell  by  the  sound  that  the  bell  made  inside  that  the  room  was 
so  lumbered  up  with  things  that  there  was  no  room  for  an 
echo — a  characteristic  trait  of  workmen's  lodgings  and  little 
households  generally,'  where  there  is  neither  space  nor  air. 
Jules  looked  about  involuntarily  for  the  wallflowers,  and  found 
them  at  last  on  the  window-sill,  between  two  pestiferous  sinks. 
Here  were  flowers,  a  garden  two  feet  long  and  six  inches  wide, 
and  a  sprouting  grain  of  wheat — all  life  condensed  into  that 
narrow  space,  and  not  one  of  life's  miseries  lacking  !  A  ray 
of  sunlight  shone  down,  as  if  in  pity  on  the  sickly  blossoms 
and  the  superb  green  column  of  wheat-stalk,  bringing  out  the 
indescribable  color  peculiar  to  Paris  slums ;  dust,  grease,  and 


96  THE    THIRTEEN. 

inconceivable  filth  incrusted  and  corroded  the  rubbed,  dis- 
colored damp  walls,  the  worm-eaten  balusters,  the  gaping 
window-sashes,  the  doors  that  once  had  been  painted  red. 
In  another  moment  he  heard  an  old  woman's  cough  and  the 
sound  of  heavy  feet  dragging  painfully  along  in  list  slippers. 
This  must  be  Ida  Gruget's  mother.  She  opened  the  door, 
came  out  upon  the  landing,  raised  her  face  to  his,  and  said — 

"Ah!  it'sM'sieur  Bocquillon  !  Why,  no  it  isn't.  My  word  ! 
how  like  you  are  to  M'sieur  Bocquillon  !  You  are  a  brother  of 
his  perhaps?  What  can  I  do  for  you,  sir?  Just  step  inside." 

Jules  followed  her  into  the  first  room,  and  caught  a  general 
impression  of  bird-cages,  pots  and  pans,  stoves,  furniture, 
little  earthenware  dishes  full  of  broken  meat,  or  milk  for  the 
dog  and  the  cats ;  a  wooden  clock-case,  blankets,  Eisen's  en- 
gravings, and  a  heap  of  old  ironware  piled  up  with  the  most 
curiously  grotesque  effect.  It  was  a  genuine  Parisian  caphar- 
naum ;  nothing  was  lacking,  not  even  a  few  odd  numbers  of 
the  "  Constitutional." 

"Just  come  in  here  and  warm  yourself,"  said  the  Widow 
Gruget,  but  prudence  prevailed.  Jules  was  afraid  that 
Ferragus  might  overhear,  and  wondered  whether  the  bargain 
which  he  proposed  to  make  had  not  better  be  concluded  in 
the  outer  room;  just  then,  however,  a  hen  came  cackling 
down  a  staircase  and  cut  short  his  inward  conference.  He 
made  up  his  mind  and  followed  Ida's  mother  into  the  next 
room,  where  a  fire  was  burning.  A  wheezy  little  pug-dog,  a 
dumb  spectator,  followed  them,  and  scrambled  up  on  an  old 
stool.  Mme.  Gruget's  request  to  come  in  and  get  warm  was 
prompted  by  the  very  coxcombry  of  poverty  on  the  brink  of 
destitution.  Her  stock-pot  completely  hid  a  couple  of 
smouldering  sticks  which  ostentatiously  shunned  each  other. 
A  skimmer  lay  on  the  floor,  with  the  handle  among  the  ashes. 
On  the  wooden  ledge  above  the  fireplace,  amid  a  litter  of 
wools,  cotton-reels,  and  odds  and  ends,  needed  for  the  manu- 
facture of  trimmings,  stood  a  little  waxen  crucifix  under  a 


THE    THIRTEEN.  97 

shade  made  of  pieces  of  glass  joined  together  with  strips 
of  bluish  paper.  Jules  looked  round  at  the  furniture  with  a 
curiosity  in  which  self-interest  was  blended,  and  in  spite  of 
himself  he  showed  his  secret  satisfaction. 

"Well,  sir,  do  you  think  you  can  buy  any  of  my  furni- 
ture ?  "  inquired  the  widow,  sitting  down  in  a  yellow  cane- 
seated  armchair,  her  headquarters  apparently  ;  for  it  contained 
her  pocket-handkerchief,  her  snuff-box,  some  half-peeled  vege- 
tables, her  spectacles,'  an  almanack,  a  length  of  galoon  on 
which  she  was  at  work,  a  pack  of  greasy  playing-cards,  and  a 
couple  of  novels.  All  this  sounded  hollow.  The  piece  of 
furniture  on  which  the  widow  was  "  descending  the  river  of 
life"  was  something  like  the  comprehensive  bag  which  women 
take  on  a  journey,  a  sort  of  house  in  miniature,  containing 
everything  from  the  husband's  portrait  to  the  drop  of  balm 
tea  in  case  she  feels  faint,  from  the  sugar-plums  for  the  little 
ones  to  English  court-plaster  for  cut  fingers. 

Jules  made  a  careful  survey  of  it  all.  He  looked  very 
closely  at  Mme.  Gruget  herself,  with  her  gray  eyes,  denuded 
of  lashes  and  eyebrows,  at  her  toothless  mouth,  at  the  dark 
shades  in  her  wrinkles,  at  her  rusty  net  cap,  with  its  yet  more 
rusty  frill,  at  her  tattered  cotton  petticoats,  her  worn  slippers, 
and  charred  foot-warmer,  and  then  at  the  table  covered  with 
crockery,  silks,  and  patterns  of  work  in  worsted  and  cotton, 
with  the  neck  of  a  wine-bottle  rising  out  of  the  middle  of  the 
litter,  and  said  within  himself:  "This  woman  has  some  pas- 
sion, some  failing  that  she  keeps  quiet :  she  is  in  my  power." 
Aloud  he  said  with  a  significant  gesture:  "I  have  come  to 
order  some  galoon  of  you,  madame  ;  "  then  lowered  his  voice 
to  add  :  "  I  know  that  yon  have  a  lodger  here,  a  man  that  goes 
by  the  name  of  Camuset." 

The  old  woman  looked  up  at  once,  but  there  was  not  a  sign 
of  surprise  in  her  countenance. 

"Look  here,  can  he  overhear  us?     There  is  a  fortune  in- 
volved for  you,  mind  you." 
7 


98  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  You  can  speak,  sir,  there  is  nothing  to  be  afraid  of;  there 
is  nobody  here.  There  is  somebody  upstairs,  but  it  is  quite 
impossible  that  he  should  hear  you." 

"Ah!  cunning  old  thing !  She  can  give  you  a  Norman's 
answer,"  thought  Jules.  "We  may  come  to  terms.  You 
need  not  trouble  yourself  to  tell  a  lie,  madame.  To  begin 
with,  bear  in  mind  that  I  mean  no  harm  whatever  to  you,  nor 
your  invalid  lodger  with  his  blisters,  nor  to  your  daughter  Ida 
the  stay-maker,  Ferragus'  sweetheart.  You  see,  I  know  all 
about  it.  Never  mind,  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  police, 
and  I  want  nothing  that  is  likely  to  hurt  your  conscience. 

"A  young  lady  will  come  here  to-morrow  between  nine  and 
ten  to  have  some  talk  with  your  daughter's  sweetheart.  I 
want  to  be  somewhere  near,  so  that  I  can  hear  and  see  every- 
thing without  being  heard  or  seen.  You  must  arrange  this 
for  me,  and  I  will  give  you  two  thousand  francs  down,  and  an 
annuity  of  six  hundred  francs.  My  notary  shall  draw  up  the 
agreement  this  evening  in  your  presence,  and  I  will  give  the 
money  into  his  hands  to  pay  over  to  you  to-morrow  after  this 
meeting  at  which  I  wish  to  be  present,  when  I  shall  have 
proof  of  your  good  faith." 

"  It  will  not  do  any  harm  to  my  daughter,  will  it,  my  dear 
gentleman?"  she  returned,  on  the  watch  like  a  suspicious  cat. 

"  None  whatever,  rnadame.  But,  at  the  same  time,  your 
daughter  is  behaving  very  badly  to  you,  it  seems  to  me. 
When  a  man  as  rich  and  powerful  as  Ferragus  is  fond  of  her, 
it  ought  to  be  easy  to  make  you  more  comfortable  than  you 
appear  to  be." 

"Ah,  my  dear  gentleman,  not  so  much  as  a  miserable  ticket 
for  the  Ambigu  or  the  Gaiete,  where  she  can  go  whenever  she 
likes.  It  is  shameful.  And  I  that  sold  my  silver  spoons,  and 
am  eating  now  off  German  silver  in  my  old  age,  all  to  appren- 
tice that  girl,  and  give  her  a  business  where  she  could  coin 
gold  if  she  chose.  For  as  to  that,  she  takes  after  her  mother ; 
she  is  as  neat-fingered  as  a  fairy,  it  must  be  said  in  justice  to 


THE    THIRTEEN.  99 

her.  At  any  rate,  she  might  as  well  hand  over  her  old  silk 
dresses  to  me,  so  fond  as  I  am  of  wearing  silk ;  but  no,  sir. 
She  goes  to  the  Cadran  Bleu,  to  dine  at  fifty  francs  a  head, 
and  rolls  in  her  carriage  like  a  princess,  and  doesn't  care  a  rap 
for  her  mother.  God  Almighty !  we  bring  these  scatter- 
brained girls  into  the  world,  and  it  is  not  the  best  that  could 
be  said  for  us.  A  mother,  sir,  and  a  good  mother,  too,  for 
I  have  hidden  her  giddiness,  and  cosseted  her  to  that  degree 
that  I  took  the  bread  out  of  my  mouth  to  stuff  her  with  all 
that  I  had  !  Well,  and  that  is  not  enough,  but  she  must  come 
and  coax  you,  and  then  wish  you  'Good-day,  mother  !  '  That 
is  the  way  they  do  their  duty  to  them  that  brought  them  into 
the  world  !  Just  let  them  go  their  ways.  But  she  will  have 
children  some  day  or  other,  and  then  she  will  know  what  it 
is  for  herself;  bad  bargains  they  are,  but  one  loves  them,  all 
the  same." 

"What,  does  she  do  nothing  for  you?" 

"Nothing?  Oh,  no,  sir,  I  don't  say  that.  If  she  did 
nothing  at  all  for  me,  it  would  be  rather  too  bad.  She  pays 
the  rent,  and  she  gives  me  firewood  and  thirty-six  francs  a 
month.  But  is  it  right,  sir,  that  I  should  have  to  go  on  work- 
ing at  my  age  ;  I  am  fifty-two,  and  my  eyes  arc  weak  of  an 
evening?  And  what  is  more,  why  won't  she  have  me  with 
her?  If  she  is  ashamed  of  me,  she  may  as  well  say  so  at  once. 
You  had  need  to  bury  yourself,  and  that  is  the  truth,  for 
these  beastly  children  that  forget  all  about  you  before  they 
have  so  much  as  shut  the  door.' 

She  drew  her  handkerchief  from  her  pocket,  and  a  lottery 
ticket  fell  out,  but  she  picked  it  up  in  a  moment. 

"Hi?   that  is  the  tax-collector's  receipt." 

Jules  suddenly  guessed  the  reason  of  the  prudent  parsimony 
of  which  the  mother  complained,  and  felt  the  more  sure  that 
the  Widow  Gruget  would  agree  to  his  proposal. 

"Very  well,  madame,"  he  said,  "in  that  case  you  will 
accept  my  offer  " 


100  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Two  thousand  francs  down,  did  you  say,  sir?  and  six  hun- 
dred francs  a  year?  " 

"  I  have  changed  my  mind,  madame.  I  will  promise  you 
only  three  hundred  francs  of  annuity.  The  arrangement  suits 
me  better.  But  I  will  pay  you  five  thousand  francs  down. 
You  would  rather  have  it  so,  would  you  not?  " 

'•'  Lord,  yes,  sir." 

"You  will  be  more  comfortable,  you  can  go  to  the  Ambigu 
Comique,  or  Franconi's,  or  anywhere  else,  and  go  comfortably 
in  a  hackney-coach." 

"Oh,  I  do  not  care  about  Franconi's  at  all,  being  as  you 
don't  hear  talk  there.  And  if  I  agree  to  take  the  money,  sir, 
it  is  because  it  will  be  a  fine  thing  for  my  child.  And  I  shall 
not  be  living  on  her.  Poor  little  thing,  after  all,  I  don't 
grudge  her  such  pleasure  as  she  gets.  Young  things  must 
have  amusement,  sir.  And  so,  if  you  will  assure  me  that  I 
shall  be  doing  nobody  any  harm " 

"Nobody,"  repeated  Jules.  "But  see  now,  how  are  you 
going  to  set  about  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  well,  sir,  if  Monsieur  Ferragus  has  just  a  little  drink 
of  poppy  water  to-night,  he  will  sleep  sound,  the  dear  man  ! 
And  much  he  stands  in  need  of  sleep,  in  such  pain  as  he  is, 
for  he  suffers  so  that  it  makes  you  sorry  to  see  it.  And  by- 
the-by,  just  tell  me  what  sort  of  a  notion  it  is  for  a  healthy 
man  to  have  his  back  burnt  to  cure  the  neuralgia  that  does 
not  trouble  him  once  in  two  years  ?  But  to  go  back  to  our 
business,  sir.  My  neighbor  that  lives  just  above  has  left  her 
key  with  me ;  her  room  is  next  door  to  Monsieur  Ferragus' 
bedroom.  She  has  gone  to  the  country  for  ten  days.  So  if 
you  have  a  hole  made  to-night  in  the  partition  wall,  you  can 
look  in  and  hear  at  your  ease.  There  is  a  locksmith,  a  great 
friend  of  mine,  a  very  nice  man,  that  talks  like  an  angel ;  he 
will  do  that  for  me,  and  nobody  any  the  wiser." 

"  Here  are  a  hundred  francs  for  him.  You  must  come  this 
evening  to  Monsieur  Desmarets' ;  he  is  a  notary ;  here  is  his 


THE    THIRTEEN.  101 

address.     The  paper  will    be  ready  at   nine  o'clock,   but — 
mum  !  " 

"  Right ;  mum  as  you  say.     Good-day,  sir." 

Jules  went  home  again,  almost  soothed  by  the  certainty  of 
knowing  everything  to-morrow.  He  found  the  letter,  sealed 
flawlessly  again,  in  the  porter's  room. 

"  How  are  you?"  he  asked  his  wife,  in  spite  of  the  cool- 
ness between  them,  so  difficult  is  it  to  break  from  the  old 
habits  of  affection. 

"Rather  better,  Jules,"  she  answered  in  winning  tones; 
"  will  you  dine  here  with  me?  " 

"  Yes.  Stay,  here  is  something  that  Fouquereau  gave  me 
for  you,"  and  he  handed  her  the  letter.  At  the  sight  of  it 
Clemence's  white  face  flushed  a  deep  red  ;  the  sudden  crim- 
son sent  an  intolerable  pang  through  her  husband. 

"Is  that  joy?"  laughed  he,  "or  relief  from  suspense?" 

"Oh  !  many  things,"  she  said,  as  she  looked  at  the  seal. 

"  I  will  leave  you,  madame." 

He  went  down  to  his  office  and  wrote  to  his  brother  about 
the  annuity  for  the  Widow  Gruget.  When  he  came  back 
again  dinner  was  ready  on  a  little  table  by  Clemence's  bed- 
side, and  Josephine  waited  upon  them. 

"  If  I  were  not  lying  in  bed,  what  a  pleasure  it  would  be  to 
me  to  serve  you !  "  she  said,  when  Josephine  had  gone. 
"Oh,  and  even  on  my  knees,"  she  went  on,  passing  her 
white  fingers  through  Jules'  hair.  "  Dear  noble  heart !  you 
were  very  merciful  and  good  to  me  just  now.  You  have 
done  me  more  good  by  your  trust  in  me  than  all  the  doctors 
in  the  world  could  do  with  their  prescriptions.  Your  woman's 
delicacy — for  you  can  love  as  a  woman  can — shed  balm  in  my 
soul ;  I  feel  almost  well  again.  There  is  a  truce.  Jules,  come 
closer,  let  me  kiss  you." 

Jules  could  not  forego  the  joy  of  Clemence's  kiss,  and  yet  it 
was  not  without  something  like  remorse  in  his  heart.  He  felt 
small  before  this  woman,  in  whose  innocence  he  was  alwavs 


102  THE    THIRTEEN. 

tempted  to  believe.  There  was  a  sort  of  sorrowful  gladness 
about  Clemence.  A  chastened  hope  shone  through  the 
troubled  expression  of  her  face.  They  seemed  both  alike  un- 
happy that  the  deceit  must  be  kept  up;  another  kiss,  and 
they  must  tell  each  other  all ;  they  could  endure  their  pain 
no  longer. 

"  To-morrow  evening,  Clemence?" 

"No,  monsieur,  to-morrow  at  noon  you  shall  know  every- 
thing, and  you  will  kneel  before  your  wife.  Ah  !  no,  you 
shall  not  humble  yourself.  No,  all  is  forgiven  you.  No,  you 
have  done  no  wrong.  Listen.  Yesterday  you  shattered  me 
very  ruthlessly,  but  life  perhaps  might  not  have  been  complete 
if  I  had  not  known  that  anguish  ;  it  is  a  dark  shadow  to  bring 
out  the  brightness  of  days  like  heaven." 

"You  are  bewitching  me,"  Jules  exclaimed,  "and  you 
would  give  me  remorse." 

"  Poor  love,  fate  overrules  us,  and  I  cannot  help  my  des- 
tiny. I  am  going  out  to-morrow." 

"When?" 

"At  half-past  nine." 

"  Clemence,  you  must  be  very  careful.  You  must  consult 
Dr.  Desplein  and  old  Haudry." 

"  I  shall  consult  my  own  heart  and  courage  only." 

"  I  will  leave  you  free.  I  shall  not  come  to  see  you  till 
noon." 

"Will  you  not  stay  with  me  a  little  while  to-night?  I  am 
not  ill  now — 

Jules  finished  his  work  and  came  back  to  sit  with  her.  He 
could  not  keep  away.  Love  was  stronger  in  him  than  all  his 
griefs. 

Next  morning,  at  nine  o'clock,  Jules  slipped  out  of  the 
house,  hurried  to  the  Rue  des  Enfants-Ronges,  climbed  the 
stairs,  and  rang  the  bell  at  the  Widow  Gruget's  door. 

"Ah  !  You  are  a  man  of  your  word,  punctual  as  sunrise," 
was  old  Mme.  Gruget's  greeting.  "  Come  in,  sir.  I  have  a 


THE    THIRTEEN.  103 

cup  of  coffee  and  cream  ready  for  you  in  case "  she  added, 

when  the  door  was  closed.  "  Oh  !  and  genuine  cream,  a  little 
jar  that  I  saw  them  fill  with  my  own  eyes  at  the  cowkeeper's 
near  by  in  the  Enfants-Rouges  market." 

"Thank  you,  no,  madame,  nothing.  Show  me  up- 
stairs  " 

•'  Very  good,  my  dear  gentleman.     Step  this  way." 

She  showed  Jules  into  a  room  just  above  her  own,  and 
pointed  triumphantly  to  a  hole  about  as  large  as  a  two-franc 
piece,  cut  during  the  night  so  as  to  correspond  with  a  rose  in 
the  pattern  of  the  paper  in  Ferragus'  room.  The  opening  had 
been  made  above  a  cupboard  on  either  side  the  wall ;  the 
locksmith  had  left  no  trace  of  his  handiwork;  and  from  below 
it  was  very  difficult  to  see  this  improvised  loophole  in  a  dark 
corner.  If  Jules  meant  to  see  or  hear  anything,  he  was  obliged 
to  stay  there  in  a  tolerably  cramped  position,  perched  on  the 
top  of  a  step  which  the  Widow  Gruget  had  thoughtfully  placed 
for  him. 

"There's  a  gentleman  with  him,"  she  said,  as  she  went. 
And,  in  fact,  Jules  saw  that  some  one  was  busy  dressing  a  line 
of  blisters  raised  on  Ferragus'  shoulders.  He  recognized  Fer- 
ragus from  M.  de  Maulincour's  description  of  the  man. 

"When  shall  I  be  all  right,  do  you  think?"  asked  the 
patient. 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  the  other;  "but,  from  what  the 
doctors  say,  seven  or  eight  more  dressings  will  be  needed  at 
least." 

"Very  well,  see  you  again  this  evening,"  returned  Fer- 
ragus. holding  out  a  hand  to  the  man  as  he  adjusted  the  last 
bandage. 

"This  evening,"  returned  the  other,  shaking  Ferragus  cor- 
dially by  the  hand.  "  I  should  be  glad  to  see  you  out  of  your 
pain." 

"At  last  Monsieur  de  Funcal's  papers  are  to  be  handed  over 
to-morrow,  and  Henry  Bourignard  is  really  dead,"  continued 


104  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Ferragus.  "  Those  two  unlucky  letters  that  cost  us  so  dear  have 
been  destroyed,  so  I  shall  be  somebody,  socially  speaking ;  a. 
man  among  men  again,  and  I  am  quite  as  good  as  the  sailor 
whom  the  fishes  have  eaten.  God  knows  whether  it  is  for  my 
own  sake  that  I  have  taken  a  count's  title." 

"Poor  Gratien  !  you  are  the  best  head  among  us,  our  be- 
loved brother,  the  Benjamin  of  the  band.  You  know  that." 

"  Farewell ;   take  good  care  of  my  Maulincour." 

"You  can  set  your  mind  at  rest  on  that  score." 

"  Ho  !  stay,  marquis  !  "  cried  the  convict. 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Ida  is  capable  of  anything  after  the  scene  yesterday  even- 
ing. If  she  flings  herself  into  the  river,  I  certainly  shall  not 
fish  her  out ;  she  will  the  better  keep  the  secret  of  my  name, 
the  only  secret  she  knows ;  but  look  after  her,  for,  after  all,  she 
is  a  kind  creature." 

"Very  well." 

The  stranger  went.  Ten  minutes  afterward  Jules  heard  the 
unmistakable  rustle  of  silk,  and  almost  knew  the  sound  of  his 
wife's  footsteps,  not  without  a  fevered  shiver. 

"Well,  father,  poor  father,  how  are  you?  How  brave  you 
are  !  "  It  was  Clemence  who  spoke. 

"  Come  here,  child,"  said  Ferragus,  holding  out  his  hand. 

And  Clemence  bent  her  forehead  for  his  kiss. 

"Let  us  see  you,  what  is  it,  poor  little  girl?  What  new 
troubles ?  ' ' 

"Troubles,  father?  It  is  killing  me,  killing  the  daughter 
who  loves  you  so.  As  I  wrote  telling  you  yesterday,  you 
absolutely  must  use  that  fertile  brain  of  yours  to  find  some 
way  of  seeing  poor  Jules  this  very  day.  If  you  only  knew 
how  good  he  has  been  to  me  in  spite  of  suspicions  that  seemed 
so  well  founded  !  Love  is  my  life,  father.  Do  you  wish  to 
see  me  die  ?  Oh  !  I  have  been  through  so  much  as  it  is,  and 
my  life  is  in  danger,  I  feel  it." 

"  To  lose  you,  my  child  !  to  lose  you  for  a  miserable  Paris- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  100 

ian's  curiosity  !  I  would  set  Paris  on  fire.  Ah  !  you  know 
what  a  lover  is,  but  what  a  father  is  you  do  not,  you  cannot, 
know." 

"You  frighten  me,  father,  when  you  look  like  that.  Do 
not  put  two  such  different  sentiments  in  the  balance.  I  had 
my  husband  before  I  knew  that  my  father  was  living " 

"  If  your  husband  was  the  first  to  set  a  kiss  upon  your  fore- 
head, I  was  the  first  to  let  tears  fall  there,"  said  Fcrragus. 
"Reassure  yourself,  Clemence  ;  open  your  heart  to  me.  I 
love  you  well  enough  to  be  happy  in  the  knowledge  that  you 
are  happy ;  although  your  father  is  almost  nothing  in  your 
heart,  while  you  fill  his." 

•'Ah,  God  !  such  words  make  me  too  happy.  You  make 
me  love  you  more  than  ever,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am 
robbing  something  from  my  Jules.  But  just  think  that  he  is 
in  despair,  my  good  father.  What  shall  I  tell  him  in  two 
hours'  time?  " 

''  Child,  do  you  think  that  I  waited  for  your  letter  to  save 
you  from  this  threatened  unhappiness?  What  came  to  those 
who  took  it  into  their  heads  to  meddle  with  your  happy  life, 
or  to  come  between  us  ?  Why,  have  you  never  recognized  a 
second  Providence  watching  over  you  ?  And  you  do  not 
know  twelve  men,  full  of  vigor  in  mind  and  body,  are  like  an 
escort  about  your  love  and  your  life,  always  ready  to  do  any 
deed  to  save  you  ?  And  the  father  who  used  to  risk  his  life 
to  see  you  as  you  took  your  walks ;  or  came  at  night  to  see 
you  in  your  little  cot  in  your  mother's  room  ;  that  father 
who,  from  the  memory  of  your  childish  kisses,  and  from  these 
alone,  drew  strength  to  live  when  a  man  of  honor  must  take 
his  own  life  to  escape  a  shameful  fate  ;  how  should  not  he — 
how  should  not  /,  in  short,  that  draw  breath  only  through 
your  lips — see  only  with  your  eyes,  feel  through  your  heart, 
how  should  I  not  defend  you  with  a  lion's  claws  and  a  father's 
soul,  when  you  are  all  that  I  have,  my  only  blessing,  my  life, 
my  daughter?  Why,  since  that  an:?el  died,  that  was  your 


106  THE    THIRTEEN. 

mother,  I  have  dreamed  only  one  dream — of  the  joy  of  calling 
you  my  daughter  openly,  of  clasping  you  in  my  arms  before 

heaven  and  earth,  of  killing  the  convict "  (he  paused  for 

a  moment) — "of  giving  you  a  father,"  he  continued;  "I 
saw  a  time  when  I  could  grasp  your  husband's  hand  without  a 
blush,  and  live  fearlessly  in  both  your  hearts,  and  say  to  the 
world :  '  This  is  my  child  !  ' — in  short,  I  had  visions  of  being 
a  father  at  my  ease." 

"Oh!  father,  father  !  " 

"After  many  efforts,  after  searching  the  world  over,  my 
friends  have  found  me  a  man's  shape  to  fill,"  continued  Fer- 
ragus.  "In  a  few  days'  time  I  shall  be  Monsieur  de  Funcal,  a 
Portuguese  count.  There,  dear  child,  there  are  few  men  of 
my  age  that  would  have  patience  to  learn  Portuguese  and 
English,  with  which  that  confounded  naval  officer  was  per- 
fectly acquainted." 

"My  dear  father!  " 

"  Every  contingency  is  provided  for.  In  a  few  days  his 
majesty,  John  VI.,  King  of  Portugal,  will  be  my  accomplice. 
So  you  only  need  a  little  patience  when  your  father  has  had  so 
much.  But  for  me  it  was  quite  natural.  What  would  I  not 
do  to  reward  your  devotion  during  these  three  years  ?  To 
come  so  dutifully  to  see  your  old  father,  risking  your  happiness 
as  you  did." 

"Father!"  Clemence  took  Ferragus'  hands  and  kissed 
them. 

"  Come  !  a  little  more  courage,  Clemence;  let  us  keep  the 
fatal  secret  to  the  end.  Jules  is  not  an  ordinary  man  ;  and 
yet,  do  we  know  whether  with  his  lofty  character  and 
great  love  he  will  not  feel  something  like  disrespect  for  the 
daughter  of " 

"Ah!  you  have  read  your  child's  soul,"  cried  Clemence; 
"  I  have  no  fear  but  that,"  she  added,  in  a  heart-rending  tone. 
"The  thought  freezes  my  blood.  But  remember,  father,  I 
have  promised  him  the  truth  in  two  hours." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  107 

"  Well,  my  child,  tell  him  to  go  to  the  Portuguese  embassy  to 
see  the  Comte  de  Funcal,  your  father  ;  I  will  be  there." 

"And  how  about  Monsieur  de  Maulincour  who  talked  about 
Ferragus?  Ah,  dear!  to  tell  lie  upon  lie,  what  torture, 
father!" 

"To  whom  are  you  speaking?  Yet  a  few  days,  and  no 
man  alive  can  give  me  the  lie.  And  beside,  Monsieur  de 
Maulincour  is  in  no  condition  to  remember  anything  by  this 

time There,  there,  silly  child,  dry  your  tears,  and  bear 

in  mind  that — 

A  dreadful  cry  rang  from  the  next  room,  where  Jules  Des- 
marets  was  hiding. 

"My  girl,  my  poor  girl!"  The  wail  came  through  the 
loophole  above  the  cupboard  ;  Ferragus  and  Mme.  Jules  were 
terror-stricken  by  it. 

"Go  and  see  what  it  is,  Clemence." 

Clemence  fled  down  the  narrow  staircase,  found  the  door  of 
Mme.  Gruget's  room  standing  wide  open,  and  heard  her  voice 
ring  out  overhead.  The  sound  of  sobbing  attracted  her  to 
the  fatal  room,  and  these  words  reached  her  ears  as  she 
entered — 

"It  is  you,  sir,  with  your  notions,  that  have  been  the  death 
of  her!"' 

"Hush,  wretched  woman!"  exclaimed  Jules,  trying  to 
stop  her  cries  with  his  pocket-handkerchief. 

"Murder!  Help!"  cried  the  Widow  Gruget.  At  that 
moment  Clemence  came  in,  saw  her  husband,  shrieked  aloud, 
and  fled. 

There  was  a  long  pause.  "  Who  will  sa%re  my  daughter  ?  " 
asked  Mme.  Gruget.  "You  have  murdered  her." 

"And  how?"  asked  Jules  mechanically,  stupefied  by  the 
thought  that  his  wife  had  recognized  him. 

O  O 

"Read  that,  sir,"  said  she,  bursting  into  tears.  "Will 
any  money  comfort  me  for  this?"  and  she  held  out  a  letter: 


108  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Farewell,  mother.  I  leave  you  all  I  have.  I  ask  your 
pardon  for  my  faults,  and  for  this  last  grief  I  am  bringing  on 
you  by  making  away  with  myself.  Henry,  that  I  love  better 
than  myself,  said  that  I  had  done  him  harm,  and  he  would 
have  no  more  to  do  with  me  afterward ;  I  have  lost  all  hopes 
of  establishing  myself,  and  I  shall  go  and  throw  myself  into 
the  river.  I  am  going  down  below  Neuilly,  so  as  they  shall 
never  put  me  in  the  Morgue.  If  Henry  doesn't  hate  me  after 
I've  punished  myself  with  death,  ask  him  to  bury  a  poor  girl 
whose  heart  only  beat  for  him,  and  to  forgive  me,  for  I  did 
wrong  to  meddle  with  what  was  no  concern  of  mine.  Dress 
his  blisters  carefully.1  He  has  suffered  a  deal,  the  poor  dear. 
But  I  shall  have  as  much  courage  to  drown  myself  as  he  had 
to  have  himself  burnt.  There  are  some  corsets  ready;  see 
that  they  are  sent  home.  And  pray  God  for  your  daughter. 

"IDA." 

"  Take  the  letter  to  Monsieur  de  Funcal,  in  the  next  room. 
He  is  the  only  man  that  can  save  your  daughter,  if  it  is  not 
too  late."  And  Jules  vanished,  flying  like  a  criminal  when 
the  deed  is  done.  His  legs  shook  under  him.  His  swelling 
heart  was  sending  a  hotter  and  fuller  tide  through  his  veins, 
with  a  mightier  pulse  than  he  had  ever  known  before.  The 
most  conflicting  thoughts  filled  his  mind,  and  yet  one  idea 
prevailed  above  them  all.  He  had  been  disloyal  to  the  one 
whom  he  loved  best  in  the  world ;  he  could  not  compound 
with  his  conscience,  its  voice  grew  in  proportion  to  the  extent 
of  the  wrong  that  he  had  done,  till  the  clamor  filled  him.  as 
passion  had  filled  his  inmost  being  during  the  bitterest  hours 
of  the  suspense  which  had  shaken  him  but  a  short  while  ago. 
He  dared  not  go  home,  and  spent  most  of  the  day  in  wander- 
ing about  Paris.  Upright  as  he  was,  he  shrank  from  con- 
fronting the  blameless  brow  of  the  wife  he  had  not  rightly 
valued.  The  sin  is  in  proportion  to  the  purity  of  the  con- 
science ;  and  an  act  which  for  some  is  scarcely  a  mistake  will 


THE    THIRTEEN.  109 

weigh  like  a  crime  upon  a  few  white  souls.  Is  there  not, 
indeed,  a  divine  significance  in  that  word  white?  and  does 
not  the  slightest  spot  on  a  virgin's  garments  degrade  them  at 
once  to  the  level  of  the  beggar's  rags?  Between  the  two 
there  is  but  the  difference  between  misfortune  and  error. 
Repentance  is  not  proportioned  to  the  sin  ;  God  makes  no 
distinctions;  it  is  as  hard  to  wipe  out  one  stain  as  to  wash 
away  the  sins  of  a  lifetime. 

These  thoughts  lay  heavily  on  Jules'  soul.  Justice  is  not 
more  inexorable  than  passion,  nor  more  ruthless  in  its  reason- 
ing; for  passion  has  a  conscience  of  its  own,  infallible 
as  instinct.  He  went  home  again  in  despair,  overwhelmed 
with  a  sense  of  the  wrong  he  had  done ;  but,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, joy  in  his  wife's  innocence  was  visible  in  his  pale  face. 
He  went  to  her  room  with  a  fast-throbbing  heart,  and  found 
her  lying  in  bed.  She  was  in  a  high  fever.  He  sat  down  by 
the  bedside,  took  her  hand,  and  kissed  it  and  covered  it  with 
tears. 

"Dear  angel,  they  are  the  tears  of  repentance,"  he  said, 
when  they  were  alone. 

"And  for  what?  "  she  asked. 

She  bent  her  head  down  on  the  pillow  as  she  spoke,  and 
shut  her  eyes,  and  lay  quite  still,  fearing,  with  a  mother's,  an 
angel's  delicacy,  to  betray  her  pain  and  alarm  her  husband. 
The  whole  woman  was  summed  up  in  those  words.  There 
was  a  long  silence.  Jules,  fancying  that  Clemence  was  asleep, 
stole  out  to  ask  Josephine  about  her  mistress. 

"Madame  came  in  half-dead,  sir.  We  sent  for  Monsieur 
Haudry." 

"  Has  he  been  ?     What  did  he  say  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  sir.  He  did  not  seem  satisfied  ;  he  said  that  no 
one  was  to  be  allowed  in  the  room  except  the  nurse,  and  he 
would  come  again  in  the  course  of  the  evening." 

Jules  stole  softly  back  to  his  wife,  and  sat  down  in  an  arm- 
chair by  the  bedside.  He  did  not  move  ;  his  eyes  never  left 


lit  THE    THIRTEEN. 

hers.  Whenever  Clemence  looked  up  she  met  their  gaze,  and 
from  under  her  lashes  there  escaped  a  tender,  sorrowful,  im- 
passioned glance — a  glance  that  fell  like  a  fiery  dart  in  the 
inmost  soul  of  the  man  thus  generously  absolved,  and  loved 
through  everything  by  her  whom  he  had  done  to  death.  Fore- 
bodings of  death  lay  between  them  ;  death  was  a  presence  felt 
alike  by  both.  Their  looks  were  blended  in  the  same  agony, 
as  their  two  hearts  had  been  made  one  through  love  equally 
felt  and  shared.  There  were  no  questions  now,  but  a  dreadful 
certainty.  In  the  wife,  a  perfect  generosity;  in  the  husband, 
a~_hideous  remorse;  and  in  both  their  souls  one  vision  of  the 
end,  and  the  same  consciousness  of  the  inevitable. 

There  was  a  moment  when  Jules,  thinking  that  his  wife  was 
asleep,  kissed  her  softly  on  the  forehead,  gazed  long  at  her, 
and  said  to  himself:  "Ah,  God  !  leave  this  angel  with  me  yet 
a  while  longer,  that  I  may  expiate  my  sins  by  long  adoration. 
Heroic  as  a  daughter ;  what  word  could  describe  her  as  a 
wife?" 

Clemence  opened  her  eyes ;  they  were  full  of  tears. 

"  You  hurt  me,"  she  said  in  a  weak  voice. 

It  was  growing  late.  Dr.  Haudry  came  and  asked  Jules  to 
leave  the  room  while  he  saw  his  patient ;  and  when  he  came 
out  afterward  there  was  no  need  to  ask  any  questions — a  ges- 
ture told  all. 

"  Send  for  any  of  my  colleagues  in  whom  you  have  most 
confidence,"  said  the  doctor;  "I  may  be  mistaken." 

"But,  doctor,  tell  me  the  truth.  I  am  not  a  child,  I  can 
hear  it ;  and  beside,  I  have  the  strongest  reasons  for  wishing 
to  know  it,  there  are  accounts  to  settle — 

"Madame  Jules  is  death-stricken,"  said  the  doctor. 
"  There  is  something  on  her  mind  which  complicates  the 
physical  illness ;  the  situation  was  dangerous  as  it  was,  and 
repeated  imprudence  has  made  it  worse.  Getting  out  of  bed 
in  the  night  with  barefeet ;  going  out  on  foot  yesterday,  and 
in  the  carriage  to-day,  when  I  forbade  it,  she  must  have  meant 


THE    THIRTEEN.  Ill 

to  kill  herself.  Still  my  verdict  is  not  final ;  there  is  youth, 
and  astonishing  nervous  strength — it  might  be  worth  while  to 
risk  all  to  save  all  by  some  violent  reagent ;  but  I  could  not 
take  it  upon  myself  to  prescribe  the  treatment,  I  should  not 
even  advise  it.  I  should  oppose  it  in  consultation." 

Jules  went  back  to  the  room  again.  For  eleven  days  he 
stayed  night  and  day  by  his  wife's  bedside,  sleeping  only  in 
the  daytime,  with  his  head  on  the  bedfoot.  Never  did  any 
man  carry  the  ambition  of  devotion  so  far  as  Jules  Desmarets. 
In  a  jealous  anxiety  to  do  everything  himself,  he  would  not 
allow  any  one  else  to  perform  the  least  service  for  his  wife ;  he 
sat  with  her  hand  in  his,  as  if  in  this  way  he  could  give  of  his 
own  vitality  to  her.  There  were  times  of  doubt  and  fallacious 
j°y>  good  days,  and  an  improvement,  and  crises,  and  the 
dreadful  reverberations  of  the  coming  death,  that  hesitates 
while  life  hangs  in  the  balance,  but  strikes  at  last.  Mme. 
Jules  was  never  too  weak  to  smile;  she  was  sorry  for  her 
husband,  knowing  that  very  soon  he  would  be  left  alone.  It 
was  the  twofold  agony  of  life  and  love ;  but  as  life  ebbed, 
love  grew  stronger. 

Then  came  a  dreadful  night,  when  Clemence  suffered  from 
the  delirium  that  always  comes  before  death  in  young  crea- 
tures. She  talked  aloud  of  her  happy  love,  of  her  father,  of 
her  mother's  death-bed  revelations,  and  the  charge  she  had 
laid  upon  her  daughter.  Clemence  was  struggling,  not  for 
life,  but  for  the  passionate  love  that  she  could  not  let  go. 

"God  in  heaven  !  "  she  cried  out,  "do  not  let  him  know 
how  I  want  to  have  him  die  with  me." 

Jules,  unable  to  bear  the  sight,  happened  to  be  in  the  next 
room,  and  so  did  not  hear  the  wish  that  he  would  have  ful- 
filled. 

When  the  crisis  was  over,  Mme.  Jules  found  strength. 
Next  day  she  looked  lovely  and  peaceful  once  more ;  she 
talked,  she  began  to  hope,  and  made  a  prettv  invalid's  toilet. 
She  wanted  to  be  alone  all  day,  and  entreated  her  husband  to 


112  THE    THIRTEEN. 

leave  her  so  earnestly,  that  he  was  fain  to  grant  her  wish,  as  a 
child's  pleading  is  always  granted.  Jules,  moreover,  had  need 
of  the  day.  He  went  to  M.  de  Maulincour  to  claim  the  duel 
to  which  both  had  agreed.  He  obtained  an  interview  with 
the  cause  of  his  troubles,  not  without  great  difficulty;  but  the 
vidame,  informed  that  it  was  an  affair  of  honor,  gave  way  in 
obedience  to  the  chivalrous  prejudices  which  had  always  ruled 
his  life,  and  brought  Monsieur  Jules  up  to  the  Baron  de 
Maulincour. 

Monsieur  Desmarets  looked  about  him  in  a  vain  search  for 
his  antagonist. 

"Oh,  it  really  is  he,"  said  the  commander,  indicating  the 
figure  in  the  armchair  by  the  fireside. 

"He?  who?  Jules?"  asked  the  dying  man,  in  a  broken 
voice. 

Auguste  had  lost  the  one  central  faculty  by  which  we  live — 
memory.  At  sight  of  him  M.  Desmarets  shrank  back  in 
horror.  He  could  not  recognize  the  youthful,  fine  gentleman 
in  this  Thing,  for  which  there  was  no  name  in  any  language, 
to  quote  Bossuet's  saying.  It  was,  in  truth,  a  white-haired 
corpse,  a  skeleton  scarcely  covered  by  the  wrinkled,  shriveled, 
withered  skin.  The  eyes  were  pale  and  fixed,  the  mouth 
gaped  hideously,  like  the  mouth  of  an  imbecile,  or  of  some 
debauchee  dying  of  excess.  Not  the  faintest  spark  of  intel- 
ligence was  left  to  the  forehead,  nor  indeed  to  any  other 
feature ;  nor  was  there  any  appearance  of  color  or  of  circula- 
ting blood  in  the  flabby  flesh.  These  were  the  shrunken, 
dissolving  remains  of  what  had  been  a  human  being,  a  man 
reduced  to  the  condition  of  the  monstrosities  preserved  in 
spirits  at  the  Museum.  Jules  fancied  he  could  see  Ferragus' 
terrible  head  rising  above  that  visage,  and  his  hate  shrank 
appalled  at  the  completeness  of  the  vengeance.  Clemence's 
husband  could  find  it  in  his  heart  to  pity  the  unrecognizable 
wreck  of  what  had  been  so  lately  a  young  man. 

"The  duel  has  taken  place,"  said  the  vidame. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  113 

"  Monsieur  dc  Maulincour  has  taken  many  lives,"  Jules 
exclaimed  in  distress. 

"And  the  lives  of  his  nearest  and  dearest,"  added  the  old 
noble.  "  His  grandmother  is  dying  of  grief,  and  I,  perhaps, 
shall  follow  her  to  the  tomb." 

Mme.  Jules  grew  worse  from  hour  to  hour  on  the  day  after 
the  visit.  She  took  advantage  of  a  momentary  strength  to 
draw  a  letter  from  her  pillow,  and  gave  it  quickly  to  Jules 
with  a  sign  which  no  one  could  mistake  ;  she  wished  to  spend 
her  last  breath  of  life  in  a  kiss.  He  took  it,  and  she  died. 

Jules  dropped  down  half-dead,  and  was  taken  away  to  his 
brother's  house.  There,  as  in  the  midst  of  tears  and  ravings 
he  bewailed  his  absence  of  the  day  before,  his  brother  told 
him  how  anxious  Clemence  had  been  that  he  should  not  be 
present  during  the  church's  administration  of  the  last  sacra- 
ment to  the  dying,  that  rite  so  terribly  impressive  for  a  sensi- 
tive imagination. 

"  You  could  not  have  borne  it,"  said  his  brother.  "  I  my- 
self could  scarcely  endure  to  see  it,  and  every  one  broke  out 
into  weeping.  Clemence  looked  like  a  saint.  She  summoned 
up  her  strength  to  bid  us  farewell ;  it  was  heart-rending  to 
hear  that  voice  for  the  last  time.  And  when  she  asked  par- 
don for  any  involuntary  unkindness  to  those  who  had  served 
her,  a  wail  went  up  among  the  sobs,  a  wail — 

"Enough,  that  will  do." 

He  wanted  to  be  alone  to  read  his  wife's  last  thoughts,  now 
that  she,  the  woman  whom  the  world  had  admired,  had  faded 
away  like  a  flower  : 

"This  is  my  will,  my  dearest.  Why  should  not  people 
dispose  of  their  heart's  treasures,  as  of  everything  else  that  is 
theirs?  The  love  in  my  heart — was  it  not  all  that  I  had? 
And  here  I  want  to  think  of  nothing  but  love;  it  was  all  that 
your  Clemence  brought  you,  it  is  all  that  she  can  leave  you 
when  she  dies.  Jules,  I  am  loved  again,  I  can  die  a  happy 
8 


114  THE    THIRTEEN. 

woman.  The  doctors  will  have  their  theories  of  my  death ; 
but  no  one  knows  the  real  cause  but  myself.  I  will  tell  you 
about  it,  in  spite  of  the  pain  it  may  give  you.  I  am  dying 
because  I  kept  a  secret  that  could  not  be  told,  but  I  will  not 
carry  away  a  secret  unsaid  in  the  heart  that  is  wholly  yours. 

"I  was  nurtured  and  brought  up  in  complete  solitude,  far 
away  from  the  vices  and  deceits  of  the  world,  by  the  amiable 
woman  whom  you  knew,  Jules.  Society  did  justice  to  the 
conventional  qualities  by  which  a  woman  gains  social  popu- 
larity ;  but  I,  in  secret,  enjoyed  communion  with  an  angel's 
soul ;  I  could  love  the  mother  who  gave  me  a  childhood  of  joy 
without  bitterness,  knowing  well  why  I  loved  her.  Which 
means,  does  it  not,  that  she  was  twice  loved  ?  Yes.  I  loved 
and  feared  and  respected  her,  yet  neither  the  fear  nor  the  re- 
spect oppressed  my  heart.  I  was  all  in  all  to  her ;  she  was  all 
in  all  to  me.  Through  nineteen  years  of  happiness  known  to 
the  full,  nineteen  years  without  a  care,  my  soul,  lonely  amid 
the  world  which  murmured  about  me,  mirrored  nothing  but 
the  one  most  pure  vision  of  my  mother,  and  my  heart  beat 
for  her  alone.  I  was  conscientiously  devout.  I  was  glad  to 
lead  a  pure  life  in  the  sight  of  God.  My  mother  cultivated 
all  noble  and  lofty  feelings  and  thoughts  in  me.  Ah  !  it  glad- 
dens me  to  own  it,  Jules.  I  know  now  that  my  girlhood  was 
complete,  that  I  came  to  you  with  a  maiden  heart. 

"  When  I  came  out  of  the  profound  solitude ;  when  for  the 
first  time  I  smoothed  my  hair  beneath  a  wreath  of  almond 
blossom,  and  added  a  few  knots  of  satin  ribbon  to  my  white 
gown,  thinking  how  pretty  they  looked,  and  wondering  about 
this  world  that  I  was  to  see,  and  felt  curious  about ;  well,  Jules, 
even  then,  that  simple  girlish  coquetry  was  for  you  ;  at  my 

first  entrance  into  that  new  world  I  saw  you I  saw  your 

face ;  it  stood  out  from  all  the  others  ;  you  were  handsome,  I 
thought ;  your  voice  and  your  manner  prepossessed  me  in  your 
favor ;  and  when  you  came  up  and  spoke  to  me,  and  your  fore- 
head flushed  and  your  voice  was  tremulous — the  memory  of 


THE    THIRTEEN.  115 

that  moment  sets  my  heart  throbbing  even  now  as  I  write 
you  to-day,  when  I  think  of  it  for  the  last  time.  Our  love  has 
been  from  the  first  the  keenest  of  sympathies,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  we  divined  each  other,  and  began  to  share,  as  we 
have  shared  ever  since,  the  uncounted  joys  of  love. 

"  From  that  day  my  mother  had  but  the  second  place  in 
my  heart.  I  told  her  so,  and  she  smiled,  my  adorable  mother  ! 
And  since  then  I  have  been  yours — yours  wholly.  That  is  my 
life,  my  whole  life,  my  dear  husband. 

"And  this  is  what  remains  to  be  said  : 

"  One  evening,  a  few  days  before  my  mother  died,  she  told 
me  the  secret  of  her  life,  not  without  hot  tears.  I  loved  her 
more,  far  more,  when  I  heard  in  the  presence  of  the  priest  who 
absolved  her  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  passion  condemned 
by  the  world  and  the  church.  Yet,  surely,  God  must  be  mer- 
ciful when  love  is  the  sin  of  souls  as  loving  as  hers,  even 
though  that  angel  could  not  bring  herself  to  repent  of  it.  She 
loved  with  all  her  heart,  Jules,  for  all  her  heart  was  love. 
And  so  I  prayed  for  her  every  day,  without  judging  her. 
From  that  time  I  knew  why  her  mother's  love  had  been  so 
deep  and  tender ;  from  that  time  I  knew,  too,  that  in  Paris 
there  was  some  one  living  for  whom  I  was  everything — life 
and  love.  I  knew,  beside,  that  your  success  was  due  to  him, 
and  that  he  liked  you,  and  that  he  was  an  outlaw  with  a 
blighted  name,  and  that  these  things  troubled  him  less  for  his 
own  sake  than  for  mine — for  both  our  sakes.  My  mother  had 
been  his  one  comfort ;  I  promised  to  take  her  place  now  that 
she  was  dead.  With  all  the  enthusiasm  of  an  unsophisticated 
nature,  I  thought  of  nothing  but  the  joy  of  sweetening  the 
bitterness  of  her  last  moments,  so  I  pledged  myself  to  continue 
her  work  of  secret  charity — the  charity  of  the  heart. 

"  I  saw  my  father  for  the  first  time  by  the  bed  on  which  my 
mother  had  just  drawn  her  last  breath.  When  he  raised  his 
tear-filled  eyes,  it  was  to  find  all  his  dead  hopes  once  more  in 
me.  I  vowed,  not  to  lie,  but  to  keep  silence  ;  and  what  woman 


116  THE    THIRTEEN. 

could  have  broken  that  silence  ?  Therein  lay  my  mistake — a 
mistake  expiated  by  death — I  could  not  trust  you,  Jules.  But 
fear  is  so  natural  to  a  woman,  especially  to  a  wife  who  knows 
all  that  she  has  to  lose.  I  was  afraid  for  my  love.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  my  father's  secret  might  cost  me  my  happiness ; 
and  the  more  I  loved,  the  more  I  dreaded  the  loss  of  love.  I 
dared  not  confess  this  to  my  father  ;  it  would  have  hurt  him, 
and  in  his  position  any  wound  smarts  keenly.  But  while  he 
said  not  a  word  to  me,  he  felt  my  fears.  The  true  father's 
heart  trembled  for  my  happiness,  and  I  trembled  for  myself, 
and  shrank  from  speaking  of  it  with  the  same  delicacy  which 
kept  me  mute. 

"Yes,  Jules,  I  thought  that  some  day  you  might  not  love 
Gratien's  daughter  as  you  loved  your  Clemence.  But  for  that 
dread  in  the  depths  of  my  heart,  could  I  have  hidden  anything 
from  you — from  you  that  filled  even  this  inmost  recess  ? 

"When  that  odious,  miserable  officer  spoke  to  you,  I  was 
forced  to  tell  a  lie.  That  day  I  knew  sorrov/  for  the  second 
time  in  my  life,  and  that  sorrow  has  grown  day  by  day  till 
this  last  moment  of  converse  with  you.  What  does  my  father's 
position  matter  now  ?  You  know  everything.  With  love  to 
aid  me,  I  might  have  wrestled  with  disease  and  borne  any 
pain  ;  but  I  cannot  smother  the  voice  of  doubt.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  the  knowledge  of  my  origin  may  take  something 
from  your  love,  Jules,  and  weaken  it,  and  spoil  its  purity? 
And  this  fear  nothing  can  extinguish  in  me.  This  is  the 
cause  of  my  death. 

"  I  could  not  live  in  continual  dread  of  a  word  or  a  look, 
one  word  which  might  never  be  uttered,  one  glance  that  would 
never  be  given  ;  but,  I  cannot  help  it — I  am  afraid 7  I  have 
your  love  till  I  die,  that  comforts  me.  I  have  known  for  four 
years  past  that  my  father  and  his  friends  have  all  but  turned 
the  world  upside  down  to  act  a  lie  to  the  world.  They  have 
bought  a  dead  man,  a  reputation,  and  a  fortune,  and  all  to 
give  a  new  life  to  a  living  man,  and  a  social  position  to  me— 


THE    THIRTEEN.  117 

all  this  for  your  sake,  for  our  sakes  !  We  were  to  know  noth- 
ing about  it.  Well,  my  death  will  probably  save  my  father 
from  the  necessity  of  further  falsehood,  for  he  will  die  when  I 
am  dead. 

"  So,  farewell,  Jules.  I  have  put  my  whole  heart  here  in 
this  letter.  When  I  show  you  my  love  in  the  innocence  of  its 
dread,  do  I  not  leave  you  my  very  soul  ?  I  should  not  have 
had  strength  to  tell  you  this,  but  I  could  write  it  for  you. 

"  I  have  just  made  confession  of  the  sins  of  my  lifetime  to 
God  ;  I  have  promised,  it  is  true,  to  think  of  nothing  now 
but  the  Father  in  heaven  ;  but  I  could  not  resist  the  pleasure 
of  confession  to  you,  that  are  all  to  me  upon  earth.  Alas  ! 
who  would  not  forgive  me  this  last  sigh  between  the  life  that 
is  no  more  and  the  life  to  come?  So,  farewell,  Jules,  my 
beloved  ;  I  am  going  to  God,  with  whom  there  is  love  un- 
clouded for  evermore,  to  whom  you  also  will  one  day  come. 
There,  at  the  foot  of  the  Throne  of  God,  together  for  ever- 
more, we  shall  love  through  all  the  ages.  That  hope  alone 
can  comfort  me.  If  I  am  worthy  to  go  first,  I  shall  follow 
you  through  your  life,  my  spirit  will  be  with  you  and  around 
you,  for  you  must  live  on  here  below  awhile.  Lead  a  holy 
life,  to  rejoin  me  the  more  surely.  You  can  do  so  much  good 
here  on  this  earth  !  Is  it  not  an  angel's  mission  for  a  stricken 
soul  to  spread  happiness  around,  to  give  that  which  he  has 
not? 

"  I  leave  the  unhappy  to  your  care  ;  how  should  I  be  jeal- 
ous of  their  smiles,  their  tears  ?  We  shall  find  a  great  charm 
in  these  sweet  charities.  Cannot  we  be  together  still,  if  you 
will  associate  my  name,  your  Clemence's  name,  with  every 
kindly  deed  ?  When  two  have  loved  as  we  have  loved,  Jules, 
there  is  nothing  left  but  God  ;  God  does  not  lie,  God  does 
not  fail.  Give  all  your  love  to  Him,  I  ask  it  of  you.  Culti- 
vate good  in  those  who  suffer,  comfort  the  afflicted  among  the 
church  on  earth. 

"  Adieu,  dear  heart  that  I  have  filled.     I  know  you,  I  know 


118  THE    THIRTEEN. 

that  you  will  not  love  twice ;  and  I  can  die  happy  in  a 
thought  that  would  make  any  wife  glad.  Yes,  I  shall  lie 
buried  in  your  heart.  Now  that  I  have  told  you  the  story  of 
my  childhood,  is  not  my  whole  life  poured  into  your  heart  ? 
I  shall  never  be  driven  from  it  after  I  am  dead.  You  have 
only  known  me  in  the  flower  of  my  youth  ;  I  shall  leave 
nothing  but  regrets  behind,  and  no  disenchantment.  Jules, 
that  is  a  very  happy  death. 

"  May  I  ask  one  thing  of  you  that  have  understood  me  so 
well,  one  thing  needless  to  ask,  no  doubt — the  fulfillment  of  a 
woman's  fancy,  of  a  wish  prompted  by  a  jealousy  to  which  all 
women  are  subject.  I  beg  of  you  to  burn  all  that  belonged 
to  us,  to  destroy  our  room,  and  everything  that  may  recall  our 
love. 

"Once  again,  farewell,  a  last  farewell  full  of  love,  as  my 
last  thought  will  be,  and  my  latest  breath." 

Jules  finished  the  letter,  and  a  frantic  grief  came  upon  his 
heart  in  terrible  paroxysms  which  cannot  be  described.  Every 
agony  takes  its  own  course,  and  obeys  no  fixed  rule ;  some 
men  stop  their  ears  to  hear  no  sound,  women  sometimes  close 
their  eyes  to  shut  out  all  sights  ;  and  here  and  there  a  great 
and  powerful  soul  plunges  into  sorrow  as  into  an  abyss.  De- 
spair makes  an  end  of  all  insincerities.  Jules  escaped  from  his 
brother's  house,  and  returned  to  the  Rue  de  Menars,  meaning 
to  spend  the  night  at  his  wife's  side,  and  to  keep  that  divine 
creature  in  sight  till  the  last.  As  he  went,  with  the  reckless- 
ness of  a  man  brought  to  the  lowest  depths  of  misery,  he 
began  to  understand  why  Asiatic  laws  forbid  widows  to  sur- 
vive their  husbands.  He  wanted  to  die.  He  was  in  the 
fever  of  sorrow ;  the  collapse  had  not  yet  set  in. 

He  reached  the  sacred  chamber  without  hindrance,  saw 
Clemence  lying  on  her  death-bed,  fair  as  a  saint,  her  hair 
smoothed  over  her  brows,  her  hands  folded.  She  had  been 
laid  already  in  her  shroud.  The  light  of  the  tall  candles  fell 


THE    1  HI R  TEEN.  119 

upon  a  priest  at  his  prayers,  on  Josephine,  who  was  crying  \\\ 
a  corner,  and  on  two  men  by  the  bed.  One  of  these  was 
Fcrragus.  He  stood  erect  and  motionless,  gazing  dry-eyed 
at  his  daughter,  you  might  have  taken  his  face  for  a  bronze 
statue ;  he  did  not  see  Jules.  The  other  was  Jacquct — 
Jacquet,  to  whom  Mine.  Jules  had  always  been  kind.  He  had 
felt  for  her  the  respectful  friendship  that  brings  warmth  to  the 
heart  without  troubling  it,  a  softened  passion,  love  without  its 
longings  and  its  tumult,  and  now  he  had  come  religiously  to 
pay  his  debt  of  tears,  to  bid  a  long  adieu  to  his  friend's  wife, 
and  set  a  first  and  last  kiss  on  the  forehead  of  the  woman  of 
whom  he  had  tacitly  made  his  sister. 

All  was  silent  there.  This  was  not  the  terrible  death  of  the 
church,  nor  the  pageantry  of  death  that  passes  through  the 
streets ;  it  was  death  that  glides  in  under  the  roof,  death  in 
his  pathetic  aspects ;  this  was  a  lying  in  state  for  the  heart 
amid  tears  shed  in  secret. 

Jules  sat  down  beside  Jacquet,  squeezed  his  friend's  hand, 
and  thus  without  a  word  they  stayed  till  the  morning.  When 
the  candles  burnt  faintly  in  the  dawn,  Jacquet  thought  of  the 
painful  scenes  to  come,  and  led  Jules  away  into  the  next  room. 
For  a  moment  Clemence's  husband  looked  full  at  her  father, 
and  Ferragus  looked  at  Jules.  Anguish  questioned  and 
sounded  the  depths  of  anguish,  and  both  understood  at  a 
glance.  A  flash  of  rage  glittered  fo»-  an  instant  in  Ferragus' 
eyes. 

"  It  is  your  doing  !  "  he  thought. 

"Why  not  have  trusted  me?"  the  other  one  seemed  to 
retort. 

So  might  two  tigers  have  seen  the  uselessness  of  a  conflict, 
after  eyeing  each  other  during  a  moment  of  hesitation,  with- 
out so  much  as  a  growl. 

"Jacquet,  did  you  see  to  everything?"  asked  Jules. 

"Yes,  to  everything;  and  everywhere  someone  else  had 
been  before  me  and  given  orders  and  paid." 


120  THE    THIRTEEN. 

i:  He  is  snatching  his  daughter  from  me  !  "  shouted  Jules, 
in  a  paroxsym  of  despair. 

He  dashed  into  the  bedroom.  The  father  had  gone.  Clem- 
ence  had  been  laid  in  her  leaden  coffin.  One  or  two  work- 
men were  preparing  to  solder  down  the  lid,  and  Jules  retreated 
aghast.  At  the  sound  of  the  hammer  he  broke  out  into  dull 
weeping. 

"Jacquet,"  he  said  at  length,  "one  idea  stays  with  me 
after  this  dreadful  night,  just  one  thought,  but  I  must  realize 
it,  cost  what  it  may.  Clemence  shall  not  lie  in  a  Paris  ceme- 
tery. She  shall  be  cremated,  and  I  will  keep  her  ashes  be- 
side me.  Do  not  say  a  word  about  it  to  me,  but  just  arrange 
to  have  it  done.  I  shall  shut  myself  up  in  her  room  and  stay 
there  till  I  am  ready  to  go.  No  one  shall  come  in  but  you  to 
tell  me  what  you  have  done.  There,  spare  for  nothing." 

That  morning  Mme.  Jules'  coffin  lay  under  the  archway 
with  lighted  candles  round  it,  and  was  afterward  removed  to 
St.  Roch.  The  whole  church  was  hung  with  black.  The 
kind  of  display  made  for  the  funeral  service  had  attracted  a 
great  many  people.  Everything,  even  the  most  heartfelt 
anguish,  is  a  theatrical  spectacle  in  Paris.  There  are  people 
who  will  stand  at  the  windows  to  watch  curiously  while  a  son 
weeps  in  his  mother's  funeral  procession,  just  as  there  are 
others  who  want  good  seats  to  see  an  execution.  No  people 
in  the  world  have  such  voracious  eyes.  But  the  curious  in  St. 
Roch  were  particularly  astonished  to  find  the  six  side-chapels 
in  the  church  likewise  draped  with  black,  and  two  men  in 
mourning  attending  a  mass  for  the  dead  in  each.  In  the 
choir  there  were  but  two  persons  present  at  the  funeral — M. 
Desmarets  the  notary  and  Jacquet — the  servants  were  beyond 
the  screen.  The  hangers-on  of  the  church  were  puzzled  by 
the  splendor  of  the  funeral  and  the  insignificant  number  of 
mourners.  Jules  would  have  no  indifferent  persons. 

High  mass  was  celebrated  with  all  the  sombre  grandeur  of 
the  funeral  service.  Thirteen  priests  from  various  parishes 


THE    THIRTEEN.  121 

were  there  beside  the  officiating  clergy  of  St.  Roch.  The 
sound  of  blended  voices  rose  as  the  eight  chanters,  the  priests, 
and  the  boy-choristers  sang  antiphonally  ;  and  never,  perhaps, 
was  the  Dies  tra:  more  deeply  impressive  than  at  that  moment, 
never  did  it  strike  an  icier  chill  to  the  nerves  of  Christians  by 
accident  of  birth,  assembled  there  by  chance,  curiosity,  and 
greed  of  sensation.  From  the  side-chapels  twelve  other  child- 
ish voices,  shrill  with  grief,  rose  wailing  in  the  chorus.  A 
dull  note  of  dismay  reverberated  through  the  church ;  cries  of 
anguish  answered  wails  of  terror  on  every  side.  That  awful 
music  spoke  of  agony  unknown  on  earth,  of  secret  friendship 
weeping  for  the  dead.  Never  has  any  known  religion  given 
so  powerful  a  rendering  of  the  terrors  of  the  soul,  stripped 
violently  of  the  body,  and  tossed  as  by  tempest  into  the  pres- 
ence of  the  intolerable  Majesty  of  God.  Before  that  clamor 
of  clamors,  artists  and  their  most  impassioned  work  must 
shrink  abashed.  No,  nothing  can  stand  beside  that  music 
which  gathers  up  all  human  passions,  galvanizing  them  into  a 
life  beyond  the  grave,  bringing  them,  yet  palpitating,  into  the 
presence  of  the  living  God,  the  Avenger.  Man's  life,  with 
all  its  developments,  is  embraced  by  that  Canticle  of  Death ; 
for  the  cries  of  children,  mingled  with  the  notes  of  deeper 
voices,  recall  the  pains  of  cradled  infancy,  swelled  by  the  sum 
of  all  the  pain  of  life's  later  stages,  by  the  full-toned  bass, 
and  the  quavering  notes  of  old  men  and  of  priests.  Does  not 
the  volume  of  strident  melody,  full  of  thunder  and  lightnings, 
speak  to  the  most  undaunted  imagination,  to  the  ice-bound 
heart,  nay,  to  philosophers  themselves?  As  you  hear  it,  it 
seems  that  God  thunders.  The  vaults  of  every  chapel  are 
cold  no  longer ;  they  quiver,  and  find  a  voice,  and  pour  forth 
fear  with  all  the  might  of  their  echoes.  You  seem  to  see 
visions  of  the  uncounted  dead  rising  and  holding  up  their 
hands.  It  is  not  a  father,  a  wife  or  child,  that  lies  beneath 
the  black  drapery;  it  is  Humanity  emerging  from  the  dust. 
It  is  impossible  to  be  just  to  the  Apostolic  and  Roman  Catholic 


122  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Church  until  you  have  passed  through  a  supreme  sorrow,  and 
wept  for  the  beloved  dead  lying  beneath  the  cenotaph ;  until 
you  have  heard  all  the  emotion  which  fills  your  heart,  inter- 
preted by  that  Hymn  of  Despair,  by  those  cries  that  over- 
whelm the  soul,  by  the  religious  awe  that  rises  from  strophe  to 
strophe,  eddying  up  to  heaven,  appalling,  diminishing,  exalt- 
ing the  soul,  till  as  the  last  verse  comes  to  an  end  you  are  left 
with  the  sense  of  Eternity.  You  have  been  wrestling  with 
the  vast  idea  of  the  Infinite;  and  now  all  is  hushed  in  the 
church.  Not  a  word  is  uttered  there.  Unbelievers  them- 
selves "know  not  what  ails  them."  Spanish  genius  alone 
could  invest  unspeakable  sorrow  with  such  transcendent  maj- 
esty. 

When  the  solemn  ceremony  was  over,  twelve  men  in  mourn- 
ing emerged  from  the  chapels,  and  stood  grouped  around  the 
coffin  to  hear  the  chant  of  hope  which  the  church  raises  for 
the  Christian's  soul  before  the  human  form  is  committed  to 
earth.  Then  each  of  them  entered  a  mourning  coach,  Jacquet 
and  M.  Desmarets  took  the  thirteenth,  and  the  servants  fol- 
lowed on  foot. 

An  hour  afterward  the  twelve  strangers  were  gathered  about 
a  grave,  dug  at  the  highest  point  of  the  cemetery  familiarly 
known  as  Pere-Lachaise ;  the  coffin  had  just  been  lowered  ;  a 
curious  crowd  had  gathered  from  all  parts  of  that  public  gar- 
den. The  priest  recited  a  short  prayer,  and  flung  a  handful 
of  earth  over  the  mortal  remains ;  and  the  sexton  and  his  men, 
having  claimed  their  fee,  hastily  began  to  fill  up  the  grave 
before  going  to  another. 

And  here  this  story  would  seem  to  finish.  Yet  perhaps  it 
would  be  incomplete  if  the  practical  effects  of  death  should 
be  forgotten  at  the  close  of  a  slight  sketch  of  Parisian  life,  and 
its  capricious  undulations.  Death  in  Paris  is  unlike  death  in 
any  other  great  city;  few  people  know  what  it  is  to  bring  a 
heartfelt  sorrow  into  conflict  with  civilization  in  the  shape  of 
the  municipal  authorities  of  Paris.  Perhaps,  too,  the  reader 


THE    THIRTEEN.  123 

may  feel  sufficient  interest  in  Ferragus  XXIII.  and  Jules 
Desmarcts  to  care  to  know  what  became  of  them.  And  in 
any  case,  there  are  plenty  of  people  who  like  to  know  all 
about  everything  ;  and,  as  the  most  ingenious  of  French  critics 
once  said,  would  find  out  the  chemistry  of  the  combustion  of 
the  oil  of  Aladdin's  lamp  if  they  could. 

Jacquct,  being  a  civil  servant,  naturally  applied  to  the 
authorities  for  permission  to  exhume  and  cremate  Mme.  Jules' 
body.  The  dead  sleep  under  the  protection  of  the  prefect  of 
police  ;  to  the  prefect  of  police,  therefore,  Jacquet  betook 
himself.  That  functionary  required  a  formal  application.  A 
sheet  of  stamped  paper  must  be  purchased,  sorrow  must  appear 
in  the  regulation  form  ;  and  when  a  man  is  so  overwhelmed 
with  grief  that  words  fail  him,  he  must  express  himself  in  the 
peculiar  idiom  of  red-tape,  and  translate  his  wishes  into 
business-like  phrases  with  a  marginal  note : 

"  The  petitioner  prays  permission  to  cremate 
the  body  of  his  wife." 

The  head  of  the  department,  whose  duty  it  was  to  draw  up  a 
report  for  the  prefect  of  police,  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
State,  glanced  over  the  marginal  note,  in  which  the  object  of 
the  request  was  clearly  stated  by  his  own  instruction,  and 
said — 

"But  this  is  a  serious  question.  It  is  impossible  to  draw 
up  a  report  in  less  than  a  week." 

Jacquet  was  obliged  to  explain  the  delay,  and  Jules  thought 
of  the  words  he  had  heard  Ferragus  utter:  "Set  Paris  on 
fire  !  "  Nothing  seemed  more  natural  than  a  thorough  destruc- 
tion of  that  receptacle  of  monstrous  things. 

"  Why,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  apply  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior  and  set  your  Minister  on  to  him,"  he  told 
Jacquet. 

Jacquet  accordingly  applied  to  the  Home  Office,  and  asked 
for  an  audience,  which  he  obtained — for  that  dav  two  weeks. 


124  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Jacquet  was  naturally  persistent.  He  went,  therefore,  from 
department  to  department,  and  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
private  secretary  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  With 
such  influence  he  received  a  promise  of  a  private  interview 
with  the  pasha  of  the  Home  Office,  and  a  few  lines  written  by 
the  autocrat  of  Foreign  Affairs  by  way  of  passport.  Jacquet 
now  had  hopes  of  carrying  his  point  by  storm.  He  was  ready 
for  every  emergency  with  arguments  and  categorical  answers. 
All  ended  in  failure. 

"This  is'no  affair  of  mine,"  said  the  Minister.  "The 
thing  concerns  the  prefect  of  police.  And  what  is  more :  no 
law  gives  a  husband  the  custody  of  his  wife's  body,  nor  has  a 
father  a  right  to  a  child's  corpse.  It  is  a  serious  matter.  It 
ought  to  be  looked  into,  beside,  in  the  interests  of  the  public. 
The  city  of  Paris  might  suffer.  In  short,  if  the  matter  were 
referred  directly  to  me,  I  could  not  give  a  decision  hie  et 
nunc ;  a  report  would  be  required." 

In  the  administrative  system  a  "report  "  answers  much  the 
same  end  as  limbo  or  paradise  does  in  theology.  Jacquet 
had  met  with  the  "report"  craze  before;  nor  had  he  neg- 
lected previous  opportunities  of  groaning  over  the  absurdities 
of  red  tape.  He  knew  that  since  the  administrative  Revolu- 
tion of  1804,  when  the  report  had  carried  all  before  it  in 
Government  departments,  the  minister  had  not  yet  been 
found  that  would  take  it  upon  himself  to  have  an  opinion,  or 
give  a  decision  on  any  matter,  however  small,  until  the  thing 
had  been  winnowed,  sifted,  and  thoroughly  scrutinized  by  the 
scribblers  and  scratchers  and  sublime  official  intelligences  of 
his  department. 

Jacquet — the  man  deserved  to  have  a  Plutarch  for  his  biog- 
rapher— Jacquet  saw  that  he  had  set  off  on  the  wrong  tack, 
and  defeated  his  own  ends  by  trying  to  proceed  by  the  proper 
forms.  He  should  simply  have  removed  Mine.  Jules'  coffin 
after  the  service  to  one  of  the  Desmarets'  houses  in  the  coun- 
try. There  the  mayor  of  the  village  would  have  made  no 


THE    THIRTEEN.  12o 

difficulty  about  gratifying  the  sorrowing  widower's  request. 
Constitutional  and  administrative  legalism  is  sterile;  it  is  a 
barren  monster  for  nations  and  kings  and  the  interests  of 
private  individuals  ;  but  the  nations  as  yet  have  only  learned 
to  spell  those  principles  that  are  written  in  blood;  and  as  the 
evils  of  ruling  by  the  letter  of  the  law  are  never  accompanied 
by  strife  and  bloodshed,  legalism  reduces  a  nation  to  a  dead 
level,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it. 

Jacquet,  being  a  stickler  for  liberty,  returned  home,  medi- 
tating by  the  way  on  the  blessings  of  arbitrary  government ; 
for  a  man  only  criticises  the  law  of  the  land  by  the  light  of 
his  own  passions.  But  when  he  came  to  talk  to  Jules,  there 
was  nothing  for  it  but  to  deceive  his  friend;  the  unhappy  man 
was  in  a  high  fever,  and  for  a  couple  of  days  he  stayed  in  bed. 

That  evening  at  dinner  the  minister  chanced  to  mention 
that  the  fancy  had  taken  some  one  in  Paris  to  have  his  wife's 
body  cremated  in  the  Roman  fashion.  And  for  a  moment 
classical  funeral  rites  were  the  talk  of  the  clubs.  As  things 
ancient  were  coming  into  fashion,  several  people  were  of  the 
opinion  that  it  would  be  a  fine  thing  to  revive  the  funeral  pyre 
for  distinguished  personages.  Some  were  for,  and  others 
against,  the  idea.  Some  held  that  there  were  so  many  great 
men  that  the  practice  would  raise  the  price  of  fuel ;  they 
opined  that  with  a  nation  so  fond  of  the  mental  exercise  of 
changing  its  opinions,  it  would  be  a  ridiculous  thing  to  see  a 
whole  Longchamp  of  ancestors  trotted  out  in  their  urns  at 
the  expiration  of  a  lease ;  while,  if  the  urns  happened  to  be 
valuable,  creditors  (a  race  that  never  respects  anything)  would 
seize  upon  them,  and  they,  with  their  contents  of  honorable 
dust,  would  be  put  up  to  public  auction.  Others  retorted  that 
it  was  scarcely  possible  for  a  man  to  insure  a  permanent  resi- 
dence for  his  grandparents  in  Pere-Lachaise ;  for  that  in  time 
the  city  of  Paris  would  be  compelled  to  order  a  St.  Barthol- 
omew of  its  dead.  The  cemeteries  were  invading  the  open 
country,  and  threatened  to  encroach  upon  the  grain  land  of 


126  THE    THIRTEEN, 

le  Brie.  In  short,  the  question  raised  one  of  the  futile  and  in- 
genious discussions  which,  in  Paris,  too  often  aggravates  deep- 
seated  evils.  Happily  for  Jules,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  con- 
versation, jokes,  and  epigrams  with  which  his  sorrow  supplied 
the  town. 

The  prefect  of  police  took  offense  because  M.  Jacquet  had 
gone  straight  to  the  minister  to  avoid  the  delays  and  matured 
wisdom  of  the  Board  of  Works.  The  exhumation  of  Mme.  Jules' 
body  was  a  question  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  municipal 
police.  Wherefore  the  police  department  was  elaborating  a 
sharp  answer  to  the  petition.  A  single  demand  is  enough,  the 
administration  has  a  tight  hold,  and  a  thing  once  in  its  grasp 
is  like  to  go  a  long  way.  Any  matter,  moreover,  may  be  re- 
ferred to  the  Council  of  State,  another  piece  of  machinery 
very  hard  to  set  in  motion.  Another  day  went  by,  and  Jac- 
quet made  his  friend  understand  that  the  idea  must  be  given 
up  ;  that  in  a  city  where  the  number  of  "  tears  "  embroidered 
on  the  black  trappings  are  prescribed,  where  the  law  recog- 
nizes seven  classes  of  funerals,  where  land  in  which  to  bury 
the  dead  is  sold  by  its  weight  in  silver,  where  grief  is  exploited 
on  a  system  of  double  entry,  and  the  prayers  of  the  church  are 
sold  dear,  or  the  vestry  puts  in  a  claim  for  a  few  extra  voices 
in  the  Dies  ires — any  deviation  from  the  beaten  rut  traced  out 
for  grief  by  the  authorities  was  impossible. 

"  It  would  have  been  one  joy  in  my  misery,"  said  Jules  ;  "  I 
meant  to  go  somewhere,  a  long  way  off,  to  die,  and  I  wished 
when  I  lay  in  the  grave  to  have  Clemence  in  my  arms.  I  did 
not  know  that  officialdom  could  put  out  its  claws  to  reach  us 
even  in  our  coffins." 

He  would  go  to  see  whether  there  was  a  little  room  for  him 
beside  his  wife.  So  the  friends  went  together  to  Pere-Lachaise. 
At  the  gateway  they  found  a  crowd  of  ciceroni  waiting  to  guide 
sight-seers  through  the  labyrinth,  as  if  Pere-Lachaise  were  a 
museum  or  the  Cour  des  Diligences  or  some  other  sight.  It 
was  impossible  that  Jules  or  Jacquet  should  find  Clemence's 


THE    THIKTEEN.  127 

tomb.  Terrible  agony  !  They  went  to  consult  the  gate- 
keeper. 

The  dead  have  a  gatekeeper,  and  there  are  hours  at  which 
the  dead  cannot  receive  visitors.  Only  by  shaking  all  the 
rules  and  regulations  from  top  to  bottom  can  any  one  obtain 
the  right  to  go  thither  in  the  darkness  to  weep  in  silence  and 
solitude  over  the  grave  which  holds  his  beloved  dead.  There 
are  summer  regulations  and  winter  regulations.  Of  all  the 
concierges  of  Paris,  the  gatekeeper  of  Pere-Lachaise  is  the  best 
off.  There  is  no  cord  to  pull,  to  begin  with.  Instead  of  a 
single  room,  he  has  a  house,  an  establishment  that  cannot  ex- 
actly be  described  as  a  government  department,  although  there 
is  a  considerable  staff  attached,  and  the  jurisdiction  is  wide, 
and  the  governor  of  the  dead  draws  a  salary  and  wields  an  im- 
mense power  over  a  population  who  cannot  possibly  complain 
of  him  ;  he  plays  the  despot  at  his  ease.  Neither  is  his  abode 
exactly  a  place  of  business,  albeit  there  are  offices  and  books 
to  be  kept,  and  clerks  to  keep  them,  and  receipts  and  expen- 
diture and  profits.  And  the  gatekeeper  himself  is  neither  a 
Swiss  nor  a  concierge  nor  a  porter,  for  the  door  is  always 
yawning  wide  for  the  dead  ;  and  though  there  certainly  are 
monuments  to  be  kept  in  order,  he  is  not  there  to  look  after 
them.  He  is,  in  short,  an  anomaly  which  cannot  be  defined  ; 
his  office  is  akin  in  one  way  or  another  to  every  power  in  ex- 
istence, and  yet  he  is  a  nobody,  for  his  authority,  like  Death, 
by  which  it  lives,  lies  completely  beyond  the  pale.  Never- 
theless, exception  as  he  is,  he  holds  his  tenure  from  the  City 
of  Paris,  a  creature  as  chimerical  as  the  emblematical  vessel  on 
her  coat  of  arms ;  an  imaginary  being  swayed  by  hundreds  of 
paws  and  claws  which  seldom  move  in  concert ;  and,  as  a  re- 
sult, her  public  servants  are,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
fixtures.  The  cemetery-keeper,  therefore,  is  the  concierge 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  a  public  servant,  a  permanent  element 
amid  dissolution. 

His  place,  for  that  matter,  is  no  sinecure.     No  one  can  be 


128  THE    THIRTEEN. 

buried  till  the  gatekeeper  has  seen  the  permit ;  and  he  is  bound 
to  give  account  of  his  dead.  He  can  lay  his  finger  on  a  spot 
in  that  huge  burying  ground  to  point  out  the  six  feet  of  earth 
in  which  some  day  you  will  lay  all  that  you  love,  or  hate,  as 
the  case  may  be — the  mistress  you  love  or  your  unloved 
cousin.  For,  mind  you,  to  this  lodge  all  loves  and  hates  must 
come  at  the  last,  and  are  duly  docketed  and  passed  through 
the  office.  The  man  keeps  a  register  of  sleeping-places  for 
the  dead ;  they  go  down  on  his  list  when  they  go  down  into 
the  grave. 

The  gatekeeper  has  custodians  under  him,  and  gardeners 
and  grave-diggers  and  assistants.  He  is  a  personage.  Mourn- 
ers are  not  brought  into  direct  contact  with  him  as  a  rule ; 
he  only  comes  forward  if  something  serious  occurs,  if  one 
dead  man  is  mistaken  for  another,  or  if  a  body  is  exhumed 
for  a  murder  case,  or  a  corpse  comes  to  life  again.  The  bust 
of  the  reigning  sovereign  presides  in  his  room.  Possibly  he 
keeps  other  busts  of  departed  monarchs,  with  various  royal, 
imperial,  or  semi-royal  persons,  in  a  cupboard  somewhere,  a 
sort  of  miniature  Pere-Lachaise  for  changes  in  the  Govern- 
ment. In  other  respects,  he  is  a  public  servant ;  an  excellent 
man,  a  good  husband  and  father,  epitaphs  apart ;  but — so  much 
varied  emotion  has  passed  under  his  eyes  in  the  shape  of 
hearses  !  he  has  seen  so  many  tears  shed,  both  sham  and  real, 
and  been  acquainted  with  grief  in  so  many  shapes  and  in  so 
many  faces — with  six  millions  of  eternal  sorrows,  in  short ! 
For  him,  grief  means  a  stone  slab  an  inch  thick,  four  feet 
high  by  twenty-two  inches  wide.  As  for  regrets,  they  are  one 
of  the  things  to  be  put  up  with  in  his  profession,  and  he  never 
dines  but  he  has  witnessed  torrents  of  tears  shed  by  inconsol- 
able affliction.  Every  other  emotion  finds  him  kindly  and 
sympathetic  ;  he,  too,  can  shed  tears  over  the  tragic  end  of  a 
stage  hero  like  M.  Germeuil  in  L'Auberge  des  Adrets,  he  is 
moved  when  the  man  in  the  butter-colored  breeches  is  mur- 
dered by  Robert  Macaire  ;  but  when  it  comes  to  a  real  genuine 


THE    THIRTEEN.  129 

death,  his  heart  is  ossified.  Deaths  mean  rows  of  figures  for 
him  ;  it  is  his  business  to  tabulate  statistics  of  the  dead.  And, 
as  a  last  word,  twice,  or  perhaps  thrice  in  a  century,  it  may 
happen  that  he  has  a  sublime  part  to  play,  and  then  he  is  a  hero 
at  every  hour — in  time  of  pestilence. 

When  Jacquet  went  in  search  of  this  absolute  monarch,  his 
majesty's  temper  had  suffered  somewhat. 

"  I  told  you,"  he  cried,  "  to  water  all  the  flowers  from  the 
Rue  Massena  to  the  Place  Regnault  de  Saint-Jean  d'Angely  ! 
You  fellows  simply  took  not  the  least  notice  of  what  I  told 
you.  My  patience  !  if  the  relatives  take  it  into  their  heads 
to  come,  as  it  is  a  fine  day,  they  will  be  throwing  all  the 
blame  on  me.  They  will  call  out  as  if  they  had  been  burnt, 
and  say  frightful  things  about  us  up  here,  and  our  characters 
will  be  taken  away " 

"Sir,"  put  in  Jacquet,  "we  should  like  to  know  where 
Madame  Jules  was  buried." 

"  Madame  Jules  who?  We  have  had  three  Jules  this  week. 
Ah  !  "  (interrupting  himself  as  he  glanced  at  the  gate),  "  here 
comes  Colonel  de  Maulincour's  funeral,  go  out  for  the  per- 
mit. My  word  !  it  is  a  fine  funeral,"  he  added.  "  He  has 
not  been  long  about  following  his  grandmother.  Some  fam- 
ilies seem  to  drop  off  for  a  wager.  They  have  such  bad  blood, 
have  those  Parisians  !  " 

Jacquet  tapped  him  on  the  arm. 

"  Sir,  the  person  of  whom  I  am  speaking  was  Madame  Jules 
Desmarets,  the  stockbroker's  wife." 

"Oh,  I  know  !  "  returned  he,  looking  at  Jacquet.  "Thir- 
teen mourning  coaches  at  the  funeral,  weren't  there?  and  only 
one  relation  apiece  in  the  first  dozen.  It  was  so  queer  that 
we  noticed  it " 

"  Take  care,  sir ;  Monsieur  Jules  is  with  me,  he  might  over- 
hear you  ;  and  you  ought  not  to  talk  like  that." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  you  are  right.  Excuse  me,  I  took 
you  for  the  next-of-kin.  Madame  Jules  is  in  the  Rue  du 
9 


130  THE    THIRTEEN. 

Marechal  Lefebvre,  side-walk  Number  4,"  he  continued,  after 
consulting  a  plan  of  the  ground;  "she  lies  between  Made- 
moiselle Raucourt  of  the  Comedie  Francaise  and  Monsieur 
Moreau-Malvin,  a  butcher  in  a  big  way  of  business.  There  is 
a  white  marble  monument  on  order  for  him ;  it  will  be  one  of 
the  finest  things  to  be  seen  in  the  cemetery  here,  and  that's 
a  fact." 

"  We  are  no  nearer,  sir,"  Jacquet  broke  in. 

"And  that  is  true,"  said  the  other,  looking  round. 

"  Jean  !  "  he  called,  as  a  man  came  in  sight.  "  Show  these 
gentlemen  the  way  to  Madame  Jules'  grave,  the  stockbroker's 
wife.  You  know  !  Next  to  Mademoiselle  Raucourt's  where 
there  is  a  bust." 

And  the  friends  set  out  with  their  conductor  ;  but  before 
they  reached  the  steep  path  which  leads  to  the  higher  part  of 
the  cemetery  they  must  run  the  gantlet  of  a  score  or  more 
of  stone-cutters,  carvers,  and  makers  of  wrought-iron  work, 
who  came  up  to  insinuate  in  honeyed  accents  that,  "  if  mon- 
sieur would  like  to  have  something  put  up,  we  could  do  it  for 
him  very  reasonably " 

Jacquet  was  glad  enough  to  be  there  to  stand  between  his 
friend  and  words  intolerable  for  bleeding  hearts.  They 
reached  the  spot  where  she  lay.  At  the  sight  of  the  rough 
sods  and  the  row  of  pegs  driven  in  by  the  laborers  to  mark 
out  the  space  for  the  iron  railings.  Jules  leaned  upon  Jac- 
quet's  shoulder,  raising  his  head  at  intervals  to  give  a  long 
look  at  the  little  patch  of  clay  where  he  must  leave  all  that 
remained  of  her  for  whom  and  through  whom  he  still  lived. 

"  How  hard  for  her  to  lie  there  !  " 

"  But  she  is  not  there  !  "  protested  Jacquet  ;  "  she  lives  in 
your  memory.  Come  away  ;  let  us  leave  this  horrid  place, 
where  the  dead  are  tricked  out  like  women  at  a  ball,"  he  con- 
tinued. . 

"  How  if  we  took  her  out  of  it  ?  " 

"Is  it  possible?" 


THE    THIRTEEN.  181 

"All  things  are  possible!"  cried  Jules.  Then,  after  a 
pause:  "  So  I  shall  come  here  some  day;  there  is  room  for 
roe." 

Jacquet  succeeded  in  getting  him  out  of  the  inclosure. 
The  tombs  inclosed  in  those  sprucely  kept  chessboard  com- 
partments marked  out  by  iron  railings  are  covered  with  in- 
scriptions and  sculptured  palms,  and  tears  as  cold  as  the 
marble  on  which  survivors  record  their  regrets  and  their  coats- 
of-arms.  You  may  read  jests  there,  carved  in  black  letters, 
epigrams  at  the  expense  of  the  curious,  pompous  biographies, 
and  ingeniously  worded  farewells.  Here  some  one  bides  tryst, 
and,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  bides  alone.  Here  you  behold  a 
floriated  thyrsus,  there  a  lance-head  railing  ;  farther  on  there 
are  Egyptian  vases  and  now  and  again  cannon  ;  while  spangles, 
tinsel,  and  trash  meet  your  eyes  wherever  you  turn  them. 
You  see  trade-signs  in  every  direction.  Every  style — Moorish, 
Grecian,  and  Gothic — is  represented,  together  with  every 
variety  of  decoration — friezes,  egg-mouldings,  paintings,  urns, 
genii,  and  temples,  among  any  quantity  of  dead  rose-bushes 
and  faded  immortelles.  It  is  a  scandalous  comedy  !  Here  is 
Paris  over  again — streets,  trade-signs,  industries,  houses  and 
all  complete  ;  but  it  is  a  Paris  seen  through  the  wrong  end  of 
the  perspective  glass,  a  microscopic  city,  a  Paris  diminished 
to  a  shadow  of  itself,  and  shrunk  to  the  measure  of  these 
chrysalides  of  the  dead,  this  human  species  that  has  dwindled 
so  much  in  everything  save  vanity. 

Jules  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  view.  At  his  feet,  in  the 
long  valley  of  the  Seine,  between  the  low  ridges  of  Vaugirard 
and  Meudon,  Belleville  and  Montmartre,  lay  the  real  Paris, 
in  a  blue  haze  of  its  own  smoke,  now  sunlit  and  transparent. 
He  glanced  from  under  his  eyelids  over  the  forty  thousand 
houses  of  the  city,  and  waved  his  hand  toward  the  space  be- 
tween the  column  of  the  Place  Vendome  and  the  cupola  of 
the  Invalides. 

"  There  she  was  taken   from  me,"  he  cried,  "  by  the  fatal 


132  THE    THIRTEEN. 

curiosity  of  a  world  which  seeks  bustle  and  excitement  for  the 
sake  of  excitement  and  bustle." 

Eight  or  nine  miles  farther  away  down  the  Seine  valley,  in 
a  little  village  on  one  of  the  lower  slopes  of  those  ridges  of 
hill,  between  which  the  great,  restless  city  lies,  like  a  child  in 
its  cradle,  another  sad  death  scene  was  taking  place ;  but 
here  there  was  none  of  the  funeral  pomp  of  Paris — there  were 
no  torches,  no  tall  candle,  no  mourning-coaches  hung  with 
black,  no  prayers  of  the  church ;  this  was  death  reduced  to 
the  bare  fact.  And  this  was  the  fact.  A  girl's  body  stranded 
that  morning  on  the  bank,  among  the  reeds  that  grow  in  the 
Seine  mud.  Some  sand-dredgers  on  their  way  to  work  caught 
sight  of  it  as  they  went  up  the  river  in  their  crazy  boat. 

"  Halloo  !  fifty  francs  for  us  !  "  cried  one. 

"  Right  you  are  !  "  said  the  other. 

They  came  close  up  to  the  dead  body. 

"  She  is  a  very  fine  girl." 

"  Let  us  go  and  give  notice." 

And  the  two  dredgers,  first  covering  the  corpse  with  their 
jackets,  went  off  to  the  mayor;  and  that  worthy  was  not  a 
little  puzzled  to  know  how  to  draw  up  an  official  report  of  the 
discovery. 

The  rumor  spread  with  the  telegraphic  speed  peculiar  to 
neighborhoods  where  communications  are  uninterrupted  ;  the 
gossip  on  which  the  world  battens,  and  scandal,  tittle-tattle, 
and  slander,  rush  in  to  fill  the  vacuum  between  any  given 
points.  In  a  very  short  time  people  came  to  the  mayor's 
office  to  relieve  that  gentleman  of  any  difficulty,  and  among 
them  they  converted  the  official  report  into  an  ordinary  cer- 
tificate of  death.  Through  their  assiduity  the  girl's  body  was 
identified  ;  it  was  proven  to  be  that  of  Mile.  Ida  Gruget,  stay- 
maker,  of  No.  14  Rue  de  la  Corderie  du  Temple.  At  this 
stage  of  the  proceedings  the  police  intervened,  and  the  Widow 
Gruget,  the  girl's  mother,  appeared  with  her  daughter's  fare- 


A     GIRL'S     BODY    STRANDED     THAT     MORNING    ON     THE     BANK 


-. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  133 

well  letter.  While  the  mother  sighed  and  groaned,  a  medical 
man  ascertained  that  death  had  ensued  from  asphyxia  and  an 
access  of  venous  blood  to  the  pulmonary  organs.  That  was 
all. 

The  inquest  being  over,  and  particulars  filled  in,  the  au- 
thorities gave  permission  for  the  burial  of  the  body.  The 
cure  of  the  place  declined  to  allow  the  procession  to  enter  the 
church  or  to  pray  for  the  repose  of  the  dead.*  So  an  old 
peasant-woman  sewed  Ida  Gruget  in  her  shroud,  she  was  laid 
in  a  rough  coffin  made  of  pine-boards,  and  carried  to  the 
churchyard  on  four  men's  shoulders.  Some  few  country- 
women had  the  curiosity  to  follow,  telling  the  story  of  the 
death  with  comments  of  pitying  surprise.  An  old  lady  chari- 
tably kept  the  widow,  and  would  not  allow  her  to  join  the  sad 
little  procession.  A  man,  who  fulfilled  the  threefold  office  of 
sexton,  beadle,  and  bell-ringer,  dug  a  grave  in  the  churchyard, 
a  half  acre  of  ground  at  the  back  of  the  well-known  church, 
a  classical  building  with  a  square  tower  buttressed  at  the  cor- 
ners, and  a  slate-covered  spire.  The  churchyard,  bounded 
by  crumbling  walls,  lies  behind  the  round  apse ;  there  are  no 
marble  headstones  there,  and  no  visitors ;  but  not  one,  surely, 
of  all  the  mounds  that  furrow  the  space,  lacked  the  tears  and 
heartfelt  regrets  which  no  one  gave  to  Ida  Gruget.  They  put 
her  down  out  of  sight  in  a  corner  among  the  nettles  and  tall 
grasses;  the  bier  was  lowered  into  its  place- in  that  field  so 
idyllic  in  its  simplicity,  and  in  another  moment  the  grave- 
digger  was  left  alone  to  fill  in  the  grave  in  the  gathering  dusk. 
He  stopped  now  and  again  to  look  over  into  the  road  below 
the  wall  ;  once,  with  his  hand  on  his  pickaxe,  he  gazed  in- 
tently at  the  Seine  which  had  brought  this  body  for  him  to 
bury. 

"  Poor  girl !  "  exclaimed  a  voice  ;  and  suddenly  a  man 
came  up. 

"  How  you  startled  me,  sir  !  "  said  the  sexton. 

*  Interment  in  consecrated  ground  i*  denied  the  body  of  a  suicide. 


134  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Was  there  any  service  for  this  woman  that  you  are 
burying?  " 

"No,  sir.  Monsieur  the  Cure  would  not  allow  it.  She  is 
the  first  person  buried  here  that  is  not  of  this  parish.  Every- 
body knows  everybody  else  hereabout.  Does  monsieur ? 

Halloo  !  he  is  gone  !  " 

Several  days  slipped  by.  A  man  in  black  came  to  the 
house  in  the  Rue  de  Menars ;  the  stranger  did  not  wish  to 
speak  to  Jules ;  he  went  to  Mme.  Jules'  room  and  left  a  large 
porphyry  vase  there,  bearing  the  inscription — 

INVITA   LEGE, 

CONJUGI   MOERENTI 

FILIOL^E   CINERES 

RESTITUIT 
AMICIS   XII    JUVANTIBUS 

MORIBUNDUS    PATER. 

"What  a  man  !  "  exclaimed  Jules,  bursting  into  tears. 

In  one  week  Jules  had  carried  out  all  his  wife's  wishes,  and  set 
his  own  affairs  in  order.  He  sold  his  professional  connection 
to  a  brother  of  Martin  Falleix,  and  left  Paris  behind  him, 
while  the  municipality  was  still  debating  whether  or  not  a 
citizen  had  any  legal  claim  to  his  wife's  dead  body. 

Who  has  not  met  on  the  Paris  boulevards,  at  a  street  corner, 
under  the  arcades  of  the  Palais  Royal — anywhere,  in  short,  as 
chance  may  determine — some  stranger,  man  or  woman,  whose 
face  sets  a  host  of  confused  thoughts  springing  up  in  his  brain  ? 
It  grows  suddenly  interesting  at  sight,  perhaps  because  some 
personal  singularity  suggests  a  stormy  life ;  perhaps  gestures, 
gait,  air,  and  costume  all  combine  to  present  a  curious  whole  ; 
perhaps  because  a  searching  glance  or  an  indescribable  some- 
thing makes  a  sudden,  strong  impression  before  you  can  ex- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  135 

plain  the  cause  very  clearly  to  yourself.  On  the  morrow, 
other  thoughts,  other  pictures  of  Paris  life  sweep  away  the 
passing  dream.  But  if  you  happen  to  meet  the  same  person 
again  ;  if  he  is  always  passing  along  the  street  at  the  same 
hour  (like  a  clerk  at  the  registrar's  office,  for  instance,  whose 
presence  is  required  at  marriages  eight  hours  daily)  ;  if  he  is 
one  of  those  wandering  mortals  who  seem  to  be  a  part  of  the 
furniture  of  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  you  see  him  again  and 
again  in  public  places,  on  first  nights,  or  in  those  restaurants 
of  which  he  is  the  fairest  ornament then  that  figure  be- 
comes a  tenant  in  your  memory,  and  stays  there  like  an  odd 
volume  of  a  novel  without  a  conclusion. 

You  are  tempted  to  go  up  to  the  stranger  and  ask  :  "  Who 
are  you?  Why  are  you  sauntering  about  the  streets?  What 
right  have  you  to  wear  a  crumpled  collar,  a  cane  with  an 
ivory  knob,  and  a  seedy  vest  ?  Why  those  blue  spectacles 
with  double  glasses?"  or  "What  makes  you  cling  to  that 
old-style  cravat?  " 

Some  among  these  errant  creatures  belong  to  the  progeny 
of  Terminus,  god  of  boundaries ;  they  say  nothing  to  your 
soul.  There  they  are;  that  is  all.  Why  are  they  there? 
Nobody  knows.  They  are  conventional  signs,  like  the  hack- 
neyed figures  used  by  sculptors  to  represent  the  Four  Seasons, 
or  Commerce,  or  Plenty.  Others,  again,  retired  attorneys, 
or  storekeepers,  or  antique  generals,  walk  about,  and  always 
appear  to  be  much  the  same.  They  never  seem  to  be  a  part 
of  the  torrent  of  Paris,  with  its  throng  of  young  bustling  men  ; 
rather,  they  remind  you  of  half-uprooted  trees  by  a  river-side. 
It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  other  people  forgot  to  bury 
them,  or  whether  they  escaped  out  of  their  coffins.  They 
have  reached  a  semi-fossil  condition. 

One  of  these  Paris  Melmoths  had  come  for  several  days 
past  to  make  one  of  a  sedate,  self-contained  little  crowd  which 
never  fails  to  fill  the  space  between  the  Southern  gate  of  the 
Luxembourg  Gardens  and  the  North  gate  of  the  Observatory, 


136  THE    THIRTEEN. 

whenever  the  weather  is  bright.  It  is  a  place  by  itself,  a  neutral 
space  in  Paris.  It  lies  out  of  the  city,  as  it  were,  and  yet  the 
city  is  all  about  it.  It  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  square,  a 
thoroughfare,  a  boulevard,  a  fortification,  a  garden,  an  avenue, 
and  a  highway;  it  is  provincial  and  Parisian;  it  is  every  one 
of  these  things,  and  not  one  of  them ;  it  is  a  desert.  All 
about  that  nameless  spot  rise  the  walls  of  the  Foundling  Hos- 
pital, the  Hopital  Cochin,  the  Capuchins,  La  Bourbe,  the 
Hospice  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum, 
and  the  hospital  of  the  Val-de-Grace.  All  the  sin  and  suffer- 
ing of  Paris,  in  fact,  finds  a  refuge  in  its  neighborhood ;  and 
that  nothing  may  be  wanting  in  so  philanthropic  a  quarter, 
students  of  science  repair  thither  to  study  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
the  tides  and  latitude  and  longitude.  M.  de  Chateaubriand 
too  established  the  Marie- Therese  Infirmary  not  very  far  away, 
and  the  Carmelites  founded  a  convent  near  by.  In  that  de- 
sert the  sound  of  bells  never  ceases,  every  stroke  represents 
one  of  the  solemn  moments  in  man's  life ;  the  mother  in 
travail,  the  newborn  babe,  the  dying  laborer,  the  nun  at 
prayer,  perishing  vice,  shivering  age,  disappointed  genius. 
Only  a  few  paces  away  lies  the  Mont-Parnasse  Cemetery, 
whither  shabby  funerals  go  all  day  long  from  the  crowded 
Faubourg  Saint-Marceau. 

Players  at  bowls  have  monopolized  this  esplanade  with  its 
view  of  Paris — gray-headed,  homely,  good-natured  worthies 
are  they,  who  continue  the  line  of  our  ancestors,  and  can 
only  be  compared  as  to  externals  with  their  public,  the  moving 
gallery  which  follows  them  about.  The  man  before  alluded 
to  as  new  to  this  deserted  quarter  was  an  assiduous  spectator 
of  the  game,  and  certainly  might  be  said  to  be  the  most 
striking  figure  in  these  groups ;  for  if  it  is  permissible  to 
classify  Parisians  zoologically,  the  other  bystanders  unmistak- 
ably belonged  to  the  mollusc  species.  The  new-comer  would 
walk  sympathetically  with  the  jack,  the  smaU  ball — the 
cochonnct,  at  which  the  other  balls  are  aimed,  the  centre  of 


THE    THIRTEEN.  137 

interest  in  the  game ;  and  when  it  came  to  a  stand,  he  would 
lean  against  a  tree,  and  watch  as  a  dog  watches  his  master, 
while  the  bowls  flew  or  rolled  past.  You  might  have  taken 
him  for  the  fantastic  tutelar  spirit  of  the  jack.  He  never 
uttered  a  word.  The  players  themselves,  as  zealous  fanatics 
as  could  be  found  in  any  religious  sect,  had  never  taken  him 
to  task  for  his  persistent  silence,  though  some  free-thinkers 
among  them  held  that  the  man  was  deaf  and  dumb.  When- 
ever there  was  occasion  to  measure  the  distance  between  the 
bowls  and  the  jack,  the  stranger's  cane  was  taken  as  the 
standard  of  measurement.  The  players  used  to  take  it  from 
his  ice-cold  fingers  without  a  word,  or  even  a  friendly  nod. 
The  loan  of  the  cane  was  a  kind  of  "easement"  which  he 
tacitly  permitted.  If  a  shower  came  on  he  stayed  beside  the 
jack — the  slave  of  the  bowls,  the  guardian  of  the  unfinished 
game.  He  took  rain  and  fine  weather  equally  as  a  matter  of 
course  ;  like  the  players,  he  was  a  sort  of  intermediate  species 
between  the  stupidest  Parisian  and  the  most  intelligent  of 
brutes.  In  other  respects  he  was  pale  and  withered-looking, 
absent-minded,  and  careless  of  his  dress.  He  often  came 
without  his  hat.  His  square-shaped  head  and  bald,  sallow 
cranium  showed  through  his  white  hair,  like  a  beggar's 
knee  thrust  througli  a  hole  in  his  breeches.  He  shambled 
uncertainly  about  with  his  mouth  open ;  his  vacant  eyes 
were  never  turned  to  the  sky,  he  never  raised  them  indeed, 
and  always  seemed  to  be  looking  for  something  on  the 
ground.  At  four  o'clock  an  old  woman  would  come  for  him 
and  take  him  away  somewhere  or  other,  towing  him  after  her 
as  a  girl  tugs  a  capricious  goat  which  insists  on  browsing  when 
it  is  time  to  go  back  to  the  shed.  It  was  something  dreadful 
to  see  the  old  man. 

It  was  afternoon.  Jules,  sitting  alone  in  his  traveling  car- 
riage, was  driven  rapidly  along  the  Rue  de  1'Est,  and  came 
out  upon  the  Carrefour  de  1'Observatoire,  just  as  the  old  man, 
leaning  against  a  tree,  allowed  himself  to  be  despoiled  of  his 


138  THE    THIRTEEN. 

cane  amid  the  vociferous  clamor  of  the  players,  in  pacific  dis- 
pute over  their  game.  Jules,  fancying  that  he  knew  the  face, 
called  to  the  postillion  to  stop,  and  the  carriage  came  to  a 
stand  there  and  then.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  postillion, 
wedged  in  among  heavy  carts,  was  in  nowise  anxious  to  ask 
the  insurgent  players  at  bowls  to  allow  him  to  pass  ;  he  had 
too  much  respect  for  uproars,  had  that  postillion. 

"It  is  he  !"  Jules  exclaimed,  finally  recognizing  Ferragus 
XXIII.,  Chef  des  Devorants,  in  that  human  wreck.  "How 
he  loved  her  !  "  he  added  after  a  pause.  "  Go  on,  postillion !  " 
he  shouted. 

PARIS,  February,  1833. 


II. 

THE  DUCHESSE  DE  LANGEAIS. 
To  Franz  Liszt. 

In  a  Spanish  city  on  an  island  in  the  Mediterranean  there 
stands  a  convent  of  the  order  of  Barefooted  Carmelites,  where 
the  rule  instituted  by  St.  Theresa  is  still  preserved  with  all  the 
first  rigor  of  the  reformation  brought  about  by  that  illustrious 
woman.  Extraordinary  as  this  may  seem,  it  is  none  the  less 
true.  Almost  every  religious  house  in  the  peninsula,  or  in 
Europe  for  that  matter,  was  either  destroyed  or  disorganized 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Napoleonic 
wars ;  but  as  this  island  was  protected  through  those  times  by 
the  English  fleet,  its  wealthy  convent  and  peaceable  inhabitants 
were  secure  from  the  general  trouble  and  spoliation.  The 
storms  of  many  kinds  which  shook  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  spent  their  force  before  they  reached  those 
cliffs  at  so  short  a  distance  from  the  coast  of  Andalusia. 

If  the  Emperor's  name  so  much  as  reached  the  shore  of  the 
island,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  holy  women  kneeling  in  the 
cloisters  grasped  the  reality  of  his  dream-like  progress  of  glory, 
or  the  majesty  that  blazed  in  flame  across  kingdom  after  king- 
dom during  his  meteor  life. 

In  the  minds  of  the  Roman  Catholic  world,  the  convent 
stood  out  preeminent  for  a  stern  discipline  which  nothing  had 
changed  ;  the  purity  of  its  rule  had  attracted  unhappy  women 
from  the  farthest  parts  of  Europe,  women  deprived  of  all 
human  ties,  sighing  after  the  long  suicide  accomplished  in  the 
breast  of  God.  No  convent,  indeed,  was  so  well  fitted  for 
that  complete  detachment  of  the  soul  from  all  earthly  things, 
which  is  demanded  by  the  religious  life,  albeit  on  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe  there  are  many  convents  magnificently  adapted 

(139) 


140  THE    THIRTEEN. 

to  the  purpose  of  their  existence.  Buried  away  in  the  loneliest 
valleys,  hanging  in  mid-air  on  the  steepest  mountain-sides, 
set  down  on  the  brink  of  precipices,  in  every  place  man  has 
sought  for  the  poetry  of  the  Infinite,  the  solemn  awe  of  Silence ; 
in  every  place  man  has  striven  to  draw  closer  to  God,  seeking 
Him  on  mountain-peaks,  in  the  depths  below  the  crags,  at  the 
cliff's  edge  ;  and  everywhere  man  has  found  God.  But  no- 
where, save  on  this  half-European,  half-African  ledge  of  rock 
could  you  find  so  many  different  harmonies,  combining  so  to 
raise  the  soul,  that  the  sharpest  pain  comes  to  be  like  other 
memories ;  the  strongest  impressions  are  dulied,  till  the  sor- 
rows of  life  are  laid  to  rest  in  the  depths. 

The  convent  stands  on  the  highest  point  of  the  crags  at  the 
uttermost  end  of  the  island.  On  the  side  toward  the  sea  the 
rock  was  once  rent  sheer  away  in  some  globe-cataclysm  ;  it 
rises  up  a  straight  wall  from  the  base  where  the  waves  gnaw  at 
the  stone  below  high-water  mark.  Any  assault  is  made  im- 
possible by  the  dangerous  reefs  that  stretch  far  out  to  sea,  with 
the  sparkling  waves  of  the  Mediterranean  playing  over  them. 
So,  only  from  the  sea  can  you  discern  the  square  mass  of  the 
convent  built  conformably  to  the  minute  rules  laid  down  as  to 
the  shape,  height,  doors,  and  windows  of  monastic  buildings. 
From  the  side  of  the  town,  the  church  completely  hides  the 
solid  structure  of  the  cloisters  and  their  roofs,  covered  with 
broad  slabs  of  stone  impervious  to  sun  or  storm  or  gales  of 
wind. 

The  church  itself,  built  by  the  munificence  of  a  Spanish 
family,  is  the  crowning  edifice  of  the  town.  Its  fine,  bold 
front  gives  an  imposing  and  picturesque  look  to  the  little  city 
in  the  sea.  The  sight  of  such  a  city,  with  its  close-huddled 
roofs,  arranged  for  the  most  part  amphitheatre-wise  above  a 
picturesque  harbor,  and  crowned  by  a  glorious  cathedral  front 
with  triple-arched  Gothic  doorways,  belfry  towers,  and  filigree 
spires,  is  a  spectacle  surely  in  every  way  the  sublimest  on  earth. 
Religion  towering  above  daily  life,  to  put  men  continually  in 


THE    THIRTEEN.  141 

mind  of  the  end  and  the  way,  is  in  truth  a  thoroughly  Spanish 
conception.  But  now  surround  this  picture  by  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  a  burning  sky,  imagine  a  few  palms  here  and 
there,  a  few  stunted  evergreen  trees  mingling  their  waving 
leaves  with  the  motionless  flowers  and  foliage  of  carved  stone  ; 
look  out  over  the  reef  with  its  white  fringes  of  foam  in  con- 
trast to  the  sapphire  sea;  and  then  turn  to  the  city,  with  its 
galleries  and  terraces  whither  the  inhabitants  come  to  take 
the  flower-scented  air  as  it  rises  of  an  evening  above  the  houses 
and  the  tops  of  the  trees  in  their  little  gardens;  add  a  few 
sails  down  in  the  harbor;  and  lastly,  in  the  stillness  of  falling 
night,  listen  to  the  organ  music,  the  chanting  of  the  services, 
the  wonderful  sound  of  bells  pealing  out  over  the  open  sea. 
There  is  sound  and  silence  everywhere ;  oftener  still  there  is 
silence  over  all. 

Within  the  church  is  divided  into  a  sombre,  mysterious  nave 
and  narrow  aisles.  For  some  reason,  probably  because  the 
winds  are  so  high,  the  architect  was  unable  to  build  the  flying 
buttresses  and  intervening  chapels  which  adorn  almost  all 
cathedrals,  nor  are  there  openings  of  any  kind  in  the  walls 
which  support  the  weight  of  the  roof.  Outside  there  is  simply 
the  heavy  wall  structure,  a  solid  mass  of  gray  stone  further 
strengthened  by  huge  piers  placed  at  intervals.  Inside,  the 
nave  and  its  little  side-galleries  are  lighted  entirely  by  the 
great  stained-glass  rose-window  suspended  by  a  miracle  of  art 
above  the  centre  doorway ;  for  upon  that  side  the  exposure 
permits  of  the  display  of  lacework  in  stone  and  of  other 
beauties  peculiar  to  the  style  improperly  called  Gothic. 

The  larger  part  of  the  three  naves  was  left  for  the  townsfolk, 
who  came  and  went  and  heard  mass  there.  The  choir  was 
shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  church  by  a  grating  and  thick 
folds  of  brown  curtain,  left  slightly  apart  in  the  middle  in 
such  a  way  that  nothing  of  the  choir  could  be  seen  from  the 
church  except  the  high  altar  and  the  officiating  priest.  The 
grating  itself  was  divided  up  by  the  pillars  which  supported 


142  THE    THIRTEEN. 

the  organ  loft ;  and  this  part  of  the  structure,  with  its  carved 
wooden  columns,  completed  the  line  of  the  arcading  in  the 
gallery  carried  by  the  shafts  in  the  nave.  If  any  inquisitive 
person,  therefore,  had  been  bold  enough  to  climb  upon  the 
narrow  balustrade  in  the  gallery  to  look  down  into  the  choir, 
he  could  have  seen  nothing  but  the  tall  eight-sided  windows 
of  stained  glass  beyond  the  high  altar. 

At  the  time  of  the  French  expedition  into  Spain  to  establish 
Ferdinand  VII.  once  more  on  the  throne,  a  French  general 
came  to  the  island  after  the  taking  of  Cadiz,  ostensibly  to  re- 
quire the  recognition  of  the  King's  government,  really  to  see 
the  convent  and  to  find  some  means  of  entering  it.  The 
undertaking  was  certainly  a  delicate  one ;  but  a  man  of  pas- 
sionate temper,  whose  life  had  been,  as  it  were,  but  one  series 
of  poems  in  action,  a  man  who  all  his  life  long  had  lived  ro- 
mances instead  of  writing  them,  a  man  preeminently  a  Doer, 
was  sure  to  be  tempted  by  a  deed  which  seemed  to  be  impos- 
sible. 

To  open  the  doors  of  a  convent  of  nuns  by  lawful  means  ! 
The  metropolitan  or  the  Pope  would  scarcely  have  permitted 
it  !  And  as  for  force  or  stratagem — might  not  any  indiscre- 
tion cost  him  his  position,  his  whole  career  as  a  soldier,  and 
the  end  in  view  to  boot  ?  The  Due  d' Angoulgme  was  still  in 
Spain  ;  and  of  all  the  crimes  which  a  man  in  favor  with  the 
commander-in-chief  might  commit,  this  one  alone  was  certain 
to  find  him  inexorable.  The  general  had  asked  for  the  mis- 
sion to  gratify  private  motives  of  curiosity,  though  never  was 
curiosity  more  hopeless.  This  final  attempt  was  a  matter  of 
conscience.  The  Carmelite  convent  on  the  island  was  the 
only  nunnery  in  Spain  which  had  baffled  his  search. 

As  he  crossed  from  the  mainland,  scarcely  an  hour's  dis- 
tance, he  felt  a  presentiment  that  his  hopes  were  to  be  ful- 
filled ;  and  afterward,  when  as  yet  he  had  seen  nothing  of 
the  convent  but  its  walls,  and  of  the  nuns  not  so  much  as 
their  robes;  while  he  had  merely  heard  the  chanting  of  the 


THE    THIRTEEN.  143 

service,  there  were  dim  auguries  under  the  walls  and  in  the 
sound  of  the  voices  to  justify  his  frail  hope.  And,  indeed, 
however  faint  those  so  unaccountable  presentiments  might  be, 
never  was  human  passion  more  vehemently  excited  than  the 
general's  curiosity  at  that  moment.  There  are  no  small  events 
for  the  heart ;  the  heart  exaggerates  everything ;  the  heart 
weighs  the  fall  of  a  fourteen-year-old  Empire  and  the  drop- 
ping of  a  woman's  glove  in  the  same  scales,  and  the  glove  is 
nearly  always  the  heavier  of  the  two.  So  here  are  the  facts 
in  all  their  prosaic  simplicity.  The  facts  first,  the  emotions 
will  follow. 

An  hour  after  the  general  landed  on  the  island,  the  royal 
authority  was  reestablished  there.  Some  few  Constitutional 
Spaniards  who  had  found  their  way  thither  after  the  fall  of 
Cadiz  were  allowed  to  charter  a  vessel  and  sail  for  London. 
So  there  was  neither  resistance  nor  reaction.  But  the  change 
of  government  could  not  be  effected  in  the  little  town  with- 
out a  mass,  at  which  the  two  divisions  under  the  general's 
command  were  obliged  to  be  present.  Now,  it  was  upon  this 
mass  that  the  general  had  built  his  hopes  of  gaining  some  in- 
formation as  to  the  sisters  in  the  convent  ;  he  was  quite  una- 
ware how  absolutely  the  Carmelites  were  cut  off  from  the 
world  ;  but  he  knew  that  there  might  be  among  them  one 
whom  he  held  dearer  than  life,  dearer  than  honor. 

His  hopes  were  cruelly  dashed  at  once.  Mass,  it  is  true, 
was  celebrated  with  great  pomp.  In  honor  of  such  a  solem- 
nity, the  curtains  which  always  hid  the  choir  were  drawn  back 
to  display  its  riches,  its  valuable  paintings  and  shrines  so 
bright  with  gems  that  they  eclipsed  the  glories  of  the  votive 
offerings  of  gold  and  silver  hung  up  by  sailors  of  the  port  on 
the  columns  in  the  naves.  But  all  the  nuns  had  sought  seclu- 
sion in  the  orgin-loft.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  first  check, 
during  this  very  mass  of  thanksgiving,  the  most  intimately 
thrilling  drama  that  ever  set  a  man's  heart  beating  opened  out 
widely  before  him. 


144  THE    THIRTEEN. 

The  sister  who  played  the  organ  aroused  such  intense  en- 
thusiasm, that  not  a  single  man  regretted  that  he  had  come  to 
the  service.  Even  the  men  in  the  ranks  were  delighted,  and 
the  officers  were  in  ecstasy.  As  for  the  general,  he  was  seem- 
ingly calm  and  indifferent.  The  sensations  stirred  in  him  as 
the  sister  played  one  piece  after  another  belong  to  the  small 
number  of  things  which  it  is  not  lawful  to  utter  ;  words  are 
powerless  to  express  them  ;  like  Death,  God,  Eternity,  they 
can  only  be  realized  through  their  one  point  of  contact  with 
humanity.  Strangely  enough,  the  organ  music  seemed  to 
belong  to  the  school  of  Rossini,  the  musician  who  brings  most 
human  passion  into  his  art.  Some  day  his  works,  by  their 
number  and  extent,  will  receive  the  reverence  due  to  the 
Homer  of  music.  From  among  all  the  scores  that  we  owe  to 
his  great  genius,  the  nun  seemed  to  have  chosen  "  Moses  in 
Egypt ' '  for  special  study,  doubtless  because  the  spirit  of 
sacred  music  finds  therein  its  supreme  expression.  Perhaps 
the  soul  of  the  great  musician,  so  gloriously  known  to  Europe, 
and  the  soul  of  this  unknown  executant  had  met  in  the  intui- 
tive apprehension  of  the  same  poetry.  So  at  least  thought  two 
dilettanti  officers  who  must  have  missed  the  Theatre  Favart  in 
their  Spanish  exile. 

At  last  in  the  Te  Deum  no  one  could  fail  to  discern  a 
French  soul  in  the  sudden  change  that  came  over  the  music. 
Joy  for  the  victory  of  the  Most  Christian  King  evidently 
stirred  this  nun's  heart  to  the  depths.  She  was  a  French- 
woman beyond  mistake.  Soon  the  love  of  country  shone  out, 
breaking  forth  like  shafts  of  light  from  the  fugue,  as  the  sister 
introduced  variations  with  all  a  Parisienne's  fastidious  taste, 
and  blended  vague  suggestions  of  our  grandest  national  airs 
with  her  music.  A  Spaniard's  fingers  would  not  have  brought 
this  warmth  into  a  graceful  tribute  paid  to  the  victorious  arms 
of  France.  The  musician's  nationality  was  revealed. 

"We  find  France  everywhere,  it  seems,"  said  one  of  the 
men. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  145 

The  general  had  left  the  church  during  the  Te  Deum  ;  he 
could  not  listen  any  longer.  The  nun's  music  had  been  a 
revelation  of  a  woman  loved  to  frenzy  ;  a  woman  so  carefully 
hidden  from  the  world's  eyes,  so  deeply  buried  in  the  bosom 
of  the  church,  that  hitherto  the  most  ingenious  and  persistent 
efforts  made  by  men  who  brought  great  influence  and  unusual 
powers  to  bear  upon  the  search  had  failed  to  find  her.  The 
suspicion  aroused  in  the  general's  heart  became  all  but  a  cer- 
tainty with  the  vague  reminiscence  of  a  sad,  delicious  melody, 
the  air  of  "  Fleuve  du  Tage."*  The  woman  he  loved  had 
played  the  prelude  to  the  ballet  in  a  boudoir  in  Paris,  how 
often  !  and  now  this  nun  had  chosen  the  song  to  express  an 
exile's  longing,  amid  the  joy  of  those  that  triumphed.  Terri- 
ble sensation  !  To  hope  for  the  resurrection  of  a  lost  love,  to 
find  her  only  to  know  that  she  was  lost,  to  catch  a  mysterious 
glimpse  of  h?r  after  five  years — five  years,  in  which  the  pent- 
up  passion,  chafing  in  an  empty  life,  had  grown  the  mightier 
for  every  fruitless  effort  to  satisfy  it ! 

Who  has  not  known,  at  least  once  in  his  life,  what  it  is  to 
lose  some  precious  thing ;  and  after  hunting  through  his 
papers,  ransacking  his  memory,  and  turning  his  house  upside 
down  ;  after  one  or  two  days  spent  in  vain  search,  and  hope, 
and  despair;  after  a  prodigious  expenditure  of  the  liveliest 
irritation  of  soul,  who  has  not  known  the  ineffable  pleasure  of 
finding  that  all-important  nothing  which  had  come  to  be  a 
kind  of  monomania?  Very  good.  Now,  spread  that  fury  of 
search  over  five  years ;  put  a  woman,  put  a  heart,  put  Love  in 
the  place  of  the  trifle  ;  transpose  the  monomania  into  the  key 
of  high  passion  ;  and,  furthermore,  let  the  seeker  be  a  man  of 
ardent  temper,  with  a  lion's  heart  and  a  leonine  head  and 
mane,  a  man  to  inspire  awe  and  fear  in  those  who  come  in 
contact  with  him — realize  this,  and  you  may,  perhaps,  under- 
stand why  the  general  walked  abruptly  out  of  the  church  when 
the  first  notes  of  a  ballad,  which  he  used  to  hear  with  a  rap- 

*  The  Tagus  River. 
10 


146  THE    THIRTEEN, 

ture  of  delight  in  a  gilt-paneled  boudoir,  began  to  vibrate 
along  the  aisles  of  the  church  in  the  sea. 

The  general  walked  away  down  the  steep  street  which  led 
to  the  port,  and  only  stopped  when  he  could  not  hear  the 
deep  notes  of  the  organ.  Unable  to  think  of  anything  but 
the  love  which  broke  out  in  volcanic  eruption,  filling  his  heart 
with  fire,  he  only  knew  that  the  Te  Deum  was  over  when  the 
Spanish  congregation  came  pouring  out  of  the  church.  Feel- 
ing that  his  behavior  and  attitude  might  seem  ridiculous,  he 
went  back  to  head  the  procession,  telling  the  alcalde  and  the 
governor  that,  feeling  suddenly  faint,  he  had  gone  out  into 
the  air.  Casting  about  for  a  plea  for  prolonging  his  stay,  it 
at  once  occurred  to  him  to  make  the  most  of  this  excuse, 
framed  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  He  declined,  on  a  plea 
of  increasing  indisposition,  to  preside  at  the  banquet  given  by 
the  town  to  the  French  officers,  betook  himself  to  his  bed,  and 
sent  a  message  to  the  major-general,  to  the  effect  that  tem- 
porary illness  obliged  him  to  leave  the  colonel  in  command 
of  the  troops  for  the  time  being.  This  commonplace  but  very 
plausible  stratagem  relieved  him  of  all  responsibility  for  the 
time  necessary  to  carry  out  his  plans.  The  general,  nothing 
if  not  "  Catholic  and  monarchical,"  took  occasion  to  inform 
himself  of  the  hours  of  the  services,  and  manifested  the  great- 
est zeal  for  the  performance  of  his  religious  duties,  piety  which 
caused  no  remark  in  Spain. 

The  very  next  day,  while  the  division  was  marching  out  of 
the  town,  the  general  went  to  the  convent  to  be  present  at 
vespers.  He  found  an  empty  church.  The  townsfolk,  de- 
vout though  they  were,  had  all  gone  down  to  the  quay  to 
watch  the  embarkation  of  the  troops.  He  felt  glad  to  be  the 
only  man  there.  He  tramped  noisily  up  the  nave,  clanking 
his  spurs  till  the  vaulted  roof  rang  with  the  sound  ;  he  coughed, 
he  talked  aloud  to  himself  to  let  the  nuns  know,  and  more 
particularly  to  let  the  organist  know  that  if  the  troops  were 


THE    THIRTEEN.  147 

gone,  one  Frenchman  was  left  behind.  Was  this  singular 
warning  heard  and  understood  ?  He  thought  so.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  in  the  Magnificat  the  organ  made  response  which 
was  borne  to  him  on  the  vibrating  air.  The  nun's  spirit 
found  wings  in  music  and  fled  toward  him,  throbbing  with 
the  rhythmical  pulse  of  the  sounds.  Then,  in  all  its  might, 
the  music  burst  forth  and  filled  the  church  with  warmth.  The 
Song  of  Joy  set  apart  in  the  sublime  liturgy  of  Latin  Christi- 
anity to  express  the  exaltation  of  the  soul  in  the  presence  of 
the  glory  of  the  Ever-living  God  became  the  utterance  of  a 
heart  almost  terrified  by  its  gladness  in  the  presence  of  the 
glory  of  a  mortal  love ;  a  love  that  yet  lived,  a  love  that  had 
risen  to  trouble  her  even  beyond  the  grave  in  which  the  nun 
is  laid,  that  she  may  rise  again  the  bride  of  Christ. 

The  organ  is  in  truth  the  grandest,  the  most  daring,  the 
most  magnificent  of  all  instruments  invented  by  human  genius. 
It  is  a  whole  orchestra  in  itself.  It  can  express  anything 
in  response  to  a  skilled  touch.  Surely  it  is  in  some  sort  a 
pedestal  on  which  the  soul  poises  for  a  flight  forth  into  space, 
essaying  on  her  course  to  draw  picture  after  picture  in  an  end- 
less series,  to  paint  human  life,  to  cross  the  Infinite  that  sepa- 
rates heaven  from  earth?  And  the  longer  a  dreamer  listens 
to  those  giant  harmonies,  the  better  he  realizes  that  nothing 
save  this  hundred-voiced  choir  on  earth  can  fill  all  the  space 
between  kneeling  men  and  a  God  hidden  by  the  blinding 
light  of  the  sanctuary.  The  music  is  the  one  interpreter 
strong  enough  to  bear  up  the  prayers  of  humanity  to  heaven, 
prayer  in  its  omnipotent  moods,  prayer  tinged  by  the  melan- 
choly of  many  different  natures,  colored  by  meditative  ecstasy, 
upspringing  with  the  impulse  of  repentance — blended  with 
the  myriad  fancies  of  every  creed.  Yes.  In  those  long 
vaulted  aisles  the  melodies  inspired  by  the  sense  of  things 
divine  are  blent  with  a  grandeur  unknown  before,  are  decked 
with  new  glory  and  might.  Out  of  the  dim  daylight,  and 
the  deep  silence  broken  by  the  chanting  of  the  choir  in  re- 


148  THE    THIRTEEN'. 

sponse  to  the  thunder  of  the  organ,  a  veil  is  woven  for  God, 
and  the  brightness  of  His  attributes  shines  through  it. 

And  this  wealth  of  holy  things  seemed  to  be  flung  down 
like  a  grain  of  incense  upon  the  fragile  altar  raised  to  Love 
beneath  the  eternal  throne  of  a  jealous  and  avenging  God. 
Indeed,  in  the  joy  of  the  nun  there  was  little  of  that  awe  and 
gravity  which  should  harmonize  with  the  solemnities  of  the 
Magnificat.  She  had  enriched  the  music  with  graceful  varia- 
tions, earthly  gladness  throbbing  through  the  rhythm  of  each. 
In  such  brilliant  quivering  cadences  some  great  singer  might 
strive  to  find  a  voice  for  her  love,  her  melodies  fluttered  as  a 
bird  carols  buoyantly  about  its  mate.  There  were  moments 
when  she  seemed  to  leap  back  into  the  past,  to  dally  there, 
now  with  laughter,  now  with  tears.  Her  changing  moods,  as 
it  were,  ran  riot.  She  was  like  a  woman  excited  and  happy 
over  her  lover's  return. 

But  at  length,  after  the  swaying  fugues  of  delirium,  after 
the  marvelous  rendering  of  a  vision  of  the  past,  a  revulsion 
swept  over  the  soul  that  thus  found  utterance  for  itself.  With 
a  swift  transition  from  the  major  to  the  minor,  the  organist 
told  her  hearer  of  her  present  lot.  She  gave  the  story  of  long 
melancholy  broodings,  of  the  slow  course  of  her  moral  malady. 
How  day  by  day  she  deadened  the  senses,  how  every  night 
cut  off  one  more  thought,  how  her  heart  was  slowly  reduced 
to  ashes.  The  sadness  deepened  shade  after  shade  through 
languid  modulations,  and  in  a  little  while  the  echoes  were 
pouring  out  a  torrent  of  grief.  Then,  on  a  sudden,  high  notes 
rang  out  like  the  voices  of  angels  singing  together,  as  if  to  tell 
the  lost  but  not  forgotten  lover  that  their  spirits  now  could 
only  meet  in  heaven.  Pathetic  hope  !  Then  followed  the 
Amen.  No  more  joy,  no  more  tears  in  the  air,  no  sadness, 
no  regrets.  The  Amen  was  the  return  to  God.  The  final 
chord  was  deep,  solemn,  even  terrible  ;  for  the  last  rumblings 
of  the  bass  sent  a  shiver  through  the  audience  that  raised  the 
hair  on  their  heads;  the  nun  shook  out  her  veiling  of  crepe, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  149 

and  seemed  to  sink  again  into  the  tomb  from  which  she  had 
risen  for  a  moment.  Slowly  the  reverberations  died  away ; 
it  seemed  as  if  the  church,  but  now  so  full  of  musical  light, 
had  returned  to  thick  darkness. 

The  general  had  been  caught  up  and  borne  swiftly  away  by 
this  strong-winged  spirit ;  he  had  followed  the  course  of  its 
flight  from  beginning  to  end.  He  understood  to  the  fullest 
extent  the  imagery  of  that  burning  symphony;  for  him  the 
chords  reached  deep  and  far.  For  him,  as  for  the  sister,  the 
poem  meant  future,  present,  and  past.  Is  not  music,  and 
even  opera  music,  a  sort  of  text,  which  a  susceptible  or  poetic 
temper,  or  a  sore  and  stricken  heart,  may  expand  as  memories 
shall  determine?  If  a  musician  must  needs  have  the  heart  of 
a  poet,  must  not  the  listener,  too,  be  in  a  manner  a  poet  and 
a  lover  to  hear  all  that  lies  in  great  music?  Religion,  love, 
and  music — what  are  they  but  a  threefold  expression  of  the 
same  fact,  of  that  craving  for  expansion  which  stirs  in  every 
noble  soul.  And  these  three  forms  of  poetry  ascend  to  God, 
in  whom  all  passion  on  earth  finds  its  end.  Wherefore  the 
holy  human  trinity  finds  a  place  amid  the  infinite  glories  of 
God  ;  of  God,  whom  we  always  represent  surrounded  with  the 
fires  of  love  and  cymbals  of  gold — music  and  light  and  har- 
mony. Is  not  He  the  Cause  and  the  End  of  all  our  strivings? 

The  French  general  guessed  rightly  that  here  in  the  desert, 
on  this  bare  rock  in  the  sea,  the  nun  had  seized  upon  music 
as  an  outpouring  of  the  passion  that  still  consumed  her.  Was 
this  her  manner  of  offering  up  her  love  as  a  sacrifice  to  God  ? 
Or  was  it  Love  exultant  in  triumph  over  God?  The  ques- 
tions were  hard  to  answer.  But  one  thing  at  least  the  general 
could  not  mistake — in  this  heart,  dead  to  the  world,  the  fire 
of  passion  burned  as  fiercely  as  in  his  own. 

Vespers  over,  he  went  back  to  the  alcalde's  house  upon 
whom  he  was  quartered.  In  the  all-absorbing  joy  which  comes 
in  such  full  measure  when  a  satisfaction  sought  long  and  pain- 
fully is  attained  at  last,  he  could  see  nothing  beyond  this — 


150  THE    THIRTEEN. 

he  was  still  loved  !  In  her  heart  love  had  grown  in  loneliness, 
even  as  his  love  had  grown  stronger  as  he  surmounted  one 
barrier  after  another  which  this  woman  had  set  between  them  ! 
The  glow  of  soul  came  to  its  natural  end.  There  followed 
a  longing  to  see  her  again,  to  contend  with  God  for  her,  to 
snatch  her  away — a  rash  scheme,  which  appealed  to  a  daring 
nature.  He  went  to  bed,  when  the  meal  was  over,  to  avoid 
questions ;  to  be  alone  and  think  at  his  ease ;  and  he  lay 
absorbed  by  deep  thought  till  day  broke. 

He  rose  early  to  go  to  mass.  He  went  to  the  church  and 
knelt  close  to  the  screen,  with  his  forehead  touching  the 
curtain  ;  he  would  have  torn  a  hole  in  it  if  he  had  been  alone, 
but  his  host  had  come  with  him  out  of  politeness,  and  the 
least  imprudence  might  compromise  the  whole  future  of  his 
love  and  ruin  the  new-found  hopes. 

The  organ  sounded,  but  it  was  another  player,  and  not  the 
nun  of  the  last  two  days  whose  hands  touched  the  keys.  It 
was  all  colorless  and  cold  for  the  general.  Was  the  woman 
he  loved  prostrated  by  emotion  which  well-nigh  overcame  a 
strong  man's  heart  ?  Had  she  so  fully  realized  and  shared  an 
unchanged,  longed-for  love,  that  now  she  lay  dying  on  her  bed 
in  her  cell?  While  innumerable  thoughts  of  this  kind  per- 
plexed his  mind,  the  voice  of  the  woman  he  worshiped  rang 
out  close  beside  him ;  he  knew  its  clear  resonant  soprano.  It 
was  her  voice,  with  that  faint  tremor  in  it  which  gave  it  all  the 
charm  that  shyness  and  diffidence  give  to  a  young  girl ;  her 
voice,  distinct  from  the  mass  of  singing  as  a  prima  donna's  in 
the  chorus  of  a  finale.  It  was  like  a  golden  or  silver  thread 
in  dark  frieze. 

It  was  she  !  There  could  be  no  mistake.  Parisienne  now 
as  ever,  she  had  not  laid  coquetry  aside  when  she  threw  off 
worldly  adornments  for  the  veil  and  the  Carmelite's  coarse 
serge.  She  who  had  affirmed  her  love  last  evening  in  the 
praise  sent  up  to  God  seemed  now  to  say  to  her  lover:  *•'  Yes, 
it  is  I.  I  am  here.  My  love  is  unchanged,  but  I  am  beyond 


THE    THIRTEEN.  151 

the  reach  of  love.  You  will  hear  my  voice,  my  soul  shall 
enfold  you,  and  I  shall  abide  here  under  the  brown  shroud  in 
the  choir  from  which  no  power  on  earth  can  tear  me.  Thou 
canst  never  see  me  more  !  " 

"  It  is  she  indeed  !  "  the  general  said  to  himself,  raising  his 
head.  He  had  leant  his  face  on  his  hands,  unable  at  first  to 
bear  the  intolerable  emotion  that  surged  like  a  whirlpool  in 
his  heart,  when  that  well-known  voice  vibrated  under  the 
arcading,  with  the  sound  of  the  sea  for  accompaniment. 

Storm  was  without,  and  calm  within  the  sanctuary.  Still 
that  rich  voice  poured  out  all  its  caressing  notes ;  it  fell  like 
balm  on  the  lover's  burning  heart ;  it  blossomed  upon  the 
air — the  air  that  a  man  would  fain  breathe  more  deeply  to 
receive  the  affluence  of  a  soul  breathed  forth  with  love  in  the 
words  of  the  prayer.  The  alcalde  coming  to  join  his  guest 
found  him  in  tears  during  the  elevation,  while  the  nun  was 
singing,  and  brought  him  back  to  his  house.  Surprised  to 
find  so  much  piety  in  a  French  military  officer,  the  worthy 
magistrate  invited  the  confessor  of  the  convent  to  meet  his 
guest.  Never  had  news  given  the  general  more  pleasure ;  he 
paid  the  ecclesiastic  a  good  deal  of  attention  at  supper,  and 
confirmed  his  Spanish  hosts  in  the  high  opinion  they  had 
formed  of  his  piety  by  a  not  wholly  disinterested  respect. 
He  inquired  with  gravity  how  many  sisters  there  were  in  the 
convent,  and  asked  for  particulars  of  its  endowment  and 
revenues,  as  if  from  courtesy  he  wished  to  hear  the  good  priest 
discourse  on  the  subject  most  interesting  to  him.  He  in- 
formed himself  as  to  the  manner  of  life  led  by  the  holy 
women.  Were  they  allowed  to  go  out  of  the  convent,  or  to 
see  visitors? 

"Senor,"  replied  the  venerable  churchman,  "the  rule  is 
strict.  A  woman  cannot  enter  a  monastery  of  the  order  of 
St.  Bruno  without  a  special  permission  from  his  holiness,  and 
the  rule  here  is  equally  stringent.  No  man  may  enter  a  con- 
vent of  Barefooted  Carmelites  unless  he  is  a  priest  specially 


152  THE    THIRTEEN. 

attached  to  the  services  of  the  house  by  the  archbishop.  None 
of  the  nuns  may  leave  the  convent ;  though  the  great  saint, 
Mother  Theresa,  often  left  her  cell.  The  visitor  or  the 
mothers  superior  can  alone  give  permission,  subject  to  an 
authorization  from  the  archbishop,  for  a  nun  to  see  a  visitor, 
and  then  especially  in  a  case  of  illness.  Now  we  are  one  of 
the  principal  houses,  and  consequently  we  have  a  mother  supe- 
rior here.  Among  other  foreign  sisters  there  is  one  French- 
woman, Sister  Theresa ;  she  it  is  who  directs  the  music  in  the 
chapel." 

"Oh!"  said  the  general,  with  feigned  surprise.  "She 
must  have  rejoiced  over  the  victory  of  the  House  of  Bourbon." 

"I  told  them  the  reason  of  the  mass;  they  are  always  a 
little  bit  inquisitive." 

"  But  Sister  Theresa  may  have  interests  in  France.  Per- 
haps she  would  like  to  send  some  message  or  to  hear  news." 

"I  do  not  think  so.     She  would  have  spoken  to  me." 

"As  a  fellow-countryman,  I  should  be  quite  curious  to  see 
her,"  said  the  general.  "  If  it  is  possible,  if  the  lady  superior 
consents,  if " 

"Even  at  the  grating,  and  in  the  reverend  mother's  pres- 
ence, an  interview  would  be  quite  impossible  for  anybody 
whatsoever ;  but  strict  as  the  mother  is,  for  a  deliverer  of  our 
holy  religion  and  the  throne  of  his  Catholic  majesty,  the  rule 
might  be  relaxed  for  a  moment,"  said  the  confessor,  blinking. 
"  I  will  speak  about  it." 

"How  old  is  Sister  Theresa?"  inquired  the  lover.  He 
dared  not  ask  any  questions  of  the  priest  as  to  the  nun's 
beauty. 

"  She  does  not  reckon  years  now,"  the  good  man  answered, 
with  a  simplicity  that  made  the  general  shudder. 

Next  day  before  siesta,  the  confessor  came  to  inform  the 
French  general  that  Sister  Theresa  and  the  mother  con- 
sented to  receive  him  at  the  grating  in  the  parlor  before  ves- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  153 

pers.  The  general  spent  the  siesta  in  pacing  to  and  fro  along 
the  quay  in  the  noonday  heat.  Thither  the  priest  came  to 
find  him,  and  brought  him  to  the  convent  by  way  of  the  gal- 
lery round  the  cemetery.  Fountains,  green  trees,  and  rows 
of  arcading  maintained  a  cool  freshness  in  keeping  with  the 
place. 

At  the  farther  end  of  the  long  gallery  the  priest  led  the  way 
into  a  large  room  divided  in  two  by  a  grating  covered  with  a 
brown  curtain.  In  the  first,  and  in  some  sort  public  half  of 
the  apartment,  where  the  confessor  left  the  new-comer,  a 
wooden  bench  ran  round  the  wall,  and  two  or  three  chairs, 
also  of  wood,  were  placed  near  the  grating.  The  ceiling  con- 
sisted of  bare  unornamented  joists  and  cross-beams  of  ilex 
wood.  As  the  two  windows  were  both  on  the  inner  side  of 
the  grating,  and  the  dark  surface  of  the  wood  was  a  bad  re- 
flector, the  light  in  the  place  was  so  dim  that  you  could 
scarcely  see  the  great  black  crucifix,  the  portrait  of  Sainte- 
Theresa,  and  a  picture  of  the  Madonna  which  adorned  the 
gray  parlor  walls.  Tumultuous  as  the  general's  feelings  were, 
they  took  something  of  the  melancholy  of  the  place.  He  grew 
calm  in  that  homely  quiet.  A  sense  of  something  vast  as  the 
tomb  took  possession  of  him  beneath  the  chill  unceiled  roof. 
Here,  as  in  the  grave,  was  there  not  eternal  silence,  deep 
peace — the  sense  of  the  Infinite  ?  And  beside  this  there  was 
the  quiet  and  the  fixed  thought  of  the  cloister — a  thought 
which  you  felt  like  a  subtle  presence  in  the  air,  and  in  the 
dim  dusk  of  the  room  ;  an  all-pervasive  thought  nowhere  defi- 
nitely expressed,  and  looming  the  larger  in  the  imagination  ; 
for  in  the  cloister  the  great  saying  :  "  Peace  in  the  Lord," 
enters  the  least  religious  soul  as  a  living  force. 

The  monk's  life  is  scarcely  comprehensible.  A  man  seems 
confessed  a  weakling  in  a  monastery ;  he  was  born  to  act,  to 
live  out  a  life  of  work;  he  is  evading  a  man's  destiny  in  his 
cell.  But  what  man's  strength,  blended  with  pathetic  weak- 
ness, is  implied  by  a  woman's  choice  of  the  convent  life  !  A 


154  THE    THIRTEEN. 

man  may  have  any  number  of  motives  for  burying  himself  in 
a  monastery ;  for  him  it  is  the  leap  over  the  precipice.  A 
woman  has  but  one  motive — she  does  not  unsex  herself;  she 
betroths  herself  to  a  heavenly  bridegroom.  Of  the  monk 
you  may  ask:  "Why  did  you  not  fight  your  battle?"  But 
if  a  woman  immures  herself  in  the  cloister,  is  there  not  always 
a  sublime  battle  fought  first  ? 

At  length  it  seemed  to  the  general  that  that  still  room  and 
the  lonely  convent  in  the  sea  were  full  of  thoughts  of  him. 
Love  seldom  attains  to  solemnity ;  yet  surely  a  love  still  faith- 
ful in  the  breast  of  God  was  something  solemn,  something 
more  than  a  man  had  a  right  to  look  for  as  things  are  in  this 
nineteenth  century?  The  infinite  grandeur  of  the  situation 
might  well  produce  an  effect  upon  the  general's  mind  ;  he  had 
precisely  enough  elevation  of  soul  to  forget  politics,  honors, 
Spain,  and  society  in  Paris,  and  to  rise  to  the  height  of  this 
lofty  climax.  And  what  in  truth  could  be  more  tragic? 
How  much  must  pass  in  the  souls  of  these  two  lovers,  brought 
together  in  a  place  of  strangers,  on  a  ledge  of  granite  in  the 
sea  ;  yet  held  apart  by  an  intangible,  unsurmountable  barrier  ! 
Try  to  imagine  the  man  saying  within  himself:  "  Shall  I 
triumph  over  God  in  her  heart?  "  when  a  faint  rustling  sound 
made  him  quiver,  and  the  curtain  was  drawn  aside. 

Between  him  and  the  light  stood  a  woman.  Her  face  was 
hidden  by  the  veil  that  drooped  from  the  folds  upon  her  head  ; 
she  was  dressed  according  to  the  rule  of  the  order  in  a  gown 
of  the  color  become  proverbial.  Her  bare  feet  were  hidden  ; 
if  the  general  could  have  seen  them,  he  would  have  known 
how  appallingly  thin  she  had  grown  ;  and  yet  in  spite  of  the 
thick  folds  of  her  coarse  gown,  a  mere  covering  and  no  orna- 
ment, he  could  guess  how  tears,  and  prayer,  and  passion,  and 
loneliness  had  wasted  the  woman  before  him. 

An  ice-cold  hand,  belonging,  no  doubt,  to  the  mother 
superior,  held  back  the  curtain.  The  general  gave  the  en- 
forced witness  of  their  interview  a  searching  glance,  and  met 


THE    THIRTEEN.  155 

the  dark,  inscrutable  gaze  of  an  aged  recluse.  The  mother 
might  have  been  a  century  old,  but  the  bright,  youthful  eyes 
belied  the  wrinkles  that  furrowed  her  pale  face. 

"Madame  la  Duchesse,"  he  began,  his  voice  shaken  with 
emotion,  "does  your  companion  understand  French?"  The 
veiled  figure  bowed  her  head  at  the  sound  of  his  voice. 

"There  is  no  duchess  here,"  she  replied.  "It  is  Sister 
Theresa  whom  you  see  before  you.  She  whom  you  lightly 
call  my  companion  is  my  mother  in  God,  my  superior  here  on 
earth." 

The  words  were  so  meekly  spoken  by  the  voice  that  sounded 
in  other  years  amid  harmonious  surroundings  of  refined  lux- 
ury, the  voice  of  a  queen  of  fashion  in  Paris.  Such  words 
from  the  lips  that  once  spoke  so  lightly  and  flippantly  struck 
the  general  dumb  with  amazement. 

"The  holy  mother  only  speaks  Latin  and  Spanish,"  she 
added. 

"  I  understand  neither.  Dear  Antoinette,  make  my  excuses 
to  her." 

The  light  fell  full  upon  the  nun's  figure;  a  thrill  of  deep 
emotion  betrayed  itself  in  a  faint  quiver  of  her  veil  as  she 
heard  her  name  softly  spoken  by  the  man  who  had  been  so 
hard  in  the  past. 

"  My  brother,"  she  said,  drawing  her  sleeve  under  her  veil, 
perhaps  to  brush  tears  away,  "  I  am  Sister  Theresa." 

Then,  turning  to  the  superior,  she  spoke  in  Spanish  ;  the 
general  knew  enough  of  the  language  to  understand  what  she 
said  perfectly  well;  possibly  he  could  have  spoken  it  had  he 
chosen  to  do  so. 

"  Dear  mother,  the  gentleman  presents  his  respects  to  you, 
and  begs  you  to  pardon  him  if  he  cannot  pay  them  himself, 
but  he  knows  neither  of  the  languages  which  you  speak — 

The  aged  nun  bent  her  head  slowly,  with  an  expression  of 
angelic  sweetness,  enhanced  at  the  same  time  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  her  power  and  dignity. 


156  THE    THIRTEEN. 

'•'You  know  this  gentleman?"  she  asked,  with  a  keen 
glance. 

"Yes,  mother." 

"Go  back  to  your  cell,  my  daughter!"  said  the  mother 
imperiously. 

The  general  slipped  aside  behind  the  curtain  lest  the  dread- 
ful tumult  within  him  should  appear  in  his  face ;  even  in  the 
shadow  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  still  see  the  superior's 
piercing  eyes.  He  was  afraid  of  her ;  she  held  his  little,  frail, 
hard-won  happiness  in  her  hands ;  and  he,  who  had  never 
quailed  under  a  triple  row  of  guns,  now  trembled  before  this 
nun.  The  duchess  went  toward  the  door,  but  she  turned 
back. 

"Mother,"  she  said,  with  dreadful  calmness,  "the  French- 
man is  one  of  my  brothers." 

"Then  stay,  my  daughter,"  said  the  superior,  after  a  pause. 

The  piece  of  admirable  Jesuitry  told  of  such  love  and  regret, 
that  a  man  less  strongly  constituted  might  have  broken  down 
under  the  keen  delight  in  the  midst  of  a  great  and,  for  him, 
an  entirely  novel  peril.  Oh  !  how  precious  words,  looks,  and 
gestures  became  when  love  must  baffle  lynx  eyes  and  tiger's 
claws  !  Sister  Theresa  came  back. 

"You  see,  my  brother,  what  I  have  dared  to  do  only  to 
speak  to  you  for  a  moment  of  your  salvation  and  of  the 
prayers  that  my  soul  puts  up  for  your  soul  daily.  I  am  com- 
mitting mortal  sin.  I  have  told  a  lie.  How  many  days  of 
penance  must  expiate  that  lie  !  But  I  shall  endure  it  for  your 
sake.  My  brother,  you  do  not  know  what  happiness  it  is  to 
love  in  heaven ;  to  feel  that  you  can  confess  love  purified  by 
religion,  love  transported  into  the  highest  heights  of  all,  so 
that  we  are  permitted  to  lose  sight  of  all  but  the  soul.  If  the 
doctrine  and  the  spirit  of  the  saint  to  whom  we  owe  this  refuge 
had  not  raised  me  above  earth's  anguish,  and  caught  me  up 
and  set  me,  far  indeed  beneath  the  Sphere  wherein  she  dwells, 
yet  truly  above  this  world,  I  should  not  have  seen  you  again. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  157 

But  now  I  can  see  you,  and  hear  your  voice,  and  remain 
calm " 

The  general  broke  in:  "But,  Antoinette,  let  me  see  you, 
you  whom  I  love  passionately,  desperately,  as  you  could  have 
wished  me  to  love  you." 

"  Do  not  call  me  Antoinette,  I  implore  you.  Memories  of 
the  past  hurt  me.  You  must  see  no  one  here  but  Sister  Theresa, 
a  creature  who  trusts  in  the  Divine  mercy."  She  paused  for 
a  little,  and  then  added  :  "  You  must  control  yourself,  my 
brother.  Our  mother  would  separate  us  without  pity  if  there 
is  any  worldly  passion  in  your  face,  or  if  you  allow  the  tears  to 
fall  from  your  eyes." 

The  general  bowed  his  head  to  regain  self-control ;  when  he 
looked  up  again  he  saw  her  face  beyond  the  grating — the  thin, 
white,  but  still  impassioned  face  of  the  nun.  All  the  magic 
charm  of  youth  that  once  bloomed  there,  all  the  fair  contrast 
of  velvet  whiteness  and  the  color  of  the  Bengal  rose,  had  given 
place  to  a  burning  glow  as  of  a  porcelain  jar  with  a  faint  light 
shining  through  it.  The  wonderful  hair  in  which  she  took  such 
pride  had  been  shaven  ;  there  was  a  bandage  round  her  fore- 
head and  about  her  face.  An  ascetic  life  had  left  dark  traces 
about  the  eyes,  which  still  sometimes  shot  out  fevered  glances; 
their  ordinary  calm  expression  was  but  a  veil.  In  a  few  words, 
she  was  but  the  ghost  of  her  former  self. 

"Ah  !  you  that  have  come  to  be  my  life,  you  must  come  out 
of  this  tomb!  You  were  mine;  you  had  no  right  to  give 
yourself,  even  to  God.  Did  you  not  promise  me  to  give  up  all 
at  the  least  command  from  me?  You  may,  perhaps,  think 
me  worthy  of  that  promise  now  when  you  hear  what  I  have 
done  for  you.  I  have  sought  you  all  through  the  world.  You 
have  been  in  my  thoughts  at  every  moment  for  five  years;  my 
life  has  been  given  to  you.  My  friends,  very  powerful  friends, 
as  you  know,  have  helped  with  all  their  might  to  search  every 
convent  in  France,  Italy,  Spain,  Sicily,  and  America.  Love 
burned  more  brightly  for  every  vain  search.  Again  and  again 


158  THE    THIRTEEN. 

I  made  long  journeys  with  a  false  hope ;  I  have  wasted  my 
life  and  the  heaviest  throbbings  of  my  heart  in  vain  under 
many  a  dark  convent  wall.  I  am  not  speaking  of  a  faithfulness 
that  knows  no  bounds,  for  what  is  it  ? — nothing  compared  with 
the  infinite  longings  of  my  love.  If  your  remorse  long  ago 
was  sincere,  you  certainly  ought  not  to  hesitate  to  follow  me 
to-day." 

"You  forget  that  I  am  not  free." 

"  The  duke  is  dead,"  he  answered  quickly. 

Sister  Theresa  flushed  red. 

"  May  heaven  be  open  to  him  !  "  she  cried  with  a  quick 
rush  of  feeling.  "  He  was  generous  to  me.  But  I  did  not 
mean  such  ties ;  it  was  one  of  my  sins  that  I  was  ready  to  break 
them  all  without  scruple — for  you." 

"Are  you  speaking  of  your  vows?"  the  general  asked, 
frowning.  "  I  did  not  think  that  anything  weighed  heavier 
with  your  heart  than  love.  But  do  not  fear,  Antoinette  ;  the 
Holy  Father  himself  sh'all  absolve  you  of  your  oath.  I  will 
surely  go  to  Rome,  I  will  entreat  all  the  powers  on  earth  ;  if 
God  could  come  down  from  heaven,  I  would " 

"Do  not  blaspheme." 

"  So  do  not  fear  the  anger  of  God.  Ah  !  I  would  far  rather 
hear  that  you  would  leave  your  prison  for  me ;  that  this  very 
night  you  would  let  yourself  down  into  a  boat  at  the  foot  of 
the  cliffs.  And  we  would  go  away  to  be  happy  somewhere  at 
the  world's  end,  I  know  not  where.  And,  with  me  at  your 
side,  you  should  come  back  to  life  and  health  under  the  wings 
of  love." 

"You  must  not  talk  like  this,"  said  Sister  Theresa;  "you 
do  not  know  what  you  are  to  me  now.  I  love  you  far  better 
than  I  ever  loved  you  before.  Every  day  I  pray  for  you  ;  I 
see  you  with  other  eyes.  Armand,  if  you  but  knew  the  hap- 
piness of  giving  yourself  up,  without  shame,  to  a  pure  friend- 
ship which  God  watches  over !  You  do  not  know  what  joy  it 
is  to  me  to  pray  for  heaven's  blessing  on  you.  I  never  pray  for 


THE    THIRTEEN.  159 

myself:  God  will  do  with  me  according  to  His  will ;  but,  at  the 
price  of  my  soul,  I  wish  I  could  be  sure  that  you  are  happy 
here  on  earth,  and  that  you  will  be  happy  hereafter  throughout 
all  ages.  My  eternal  life  is  all  that  trouble  has  left  me  to  offer 
up  to  you.  I  am  old  now  with  weeping  ;  I  am  neither  young 
nor  fair;  and  in  any  case,  you  could  not  respect  the  nun  who 
became  a  wife ;  no  love,  not  even  motherhood,  could  give  me 
absolution.  What  can  you  say  to  outweigh  the  uncounted 
thoughts  that  have  gathered  in  my  heart  during  the  past  five 
years,  thoughts  that  have  changed,  and  worn,  and  blighted  it? 
I  ought  to  have  given  a  heart  less  sorrowful  to  God." 

"  What  can  I  say  ?  Dear  Antoinette,  I  will  say  this,  that  I 
love  you;  that  affection,  love,  a  great  love,  the  joy  of  living 
in  another  heart  that  is  ours,  utterly  and  wholly  ours,  is  so 
rare  a  thing  and  so  hard  to  find,  that  I  doubted  you,  and  put 
you  to  sharp  proof;  but  now,  to-day,  I  love  you,  Antoinette, 
with  all  my  soul's  strength.  If  you  will  follow  me  into  soli- 
tude, I  will  hear  no  voice  but  yours.  I  will  see  no  other 
face." 

"  Hush,  Armand  !  You  are  shortening  the  little  time  that 
we  may  be  together  here  on  earth." 

"  Antoinette,  will  you  come  with  me  ?  " 

"I  am  never  away  from  you.  My  life  is  in  your  heart, 
not  through  the  selfish  ties  of  earthly  happiness,  or  vanity, 
or  enjoyment ;  pale  and  withered  as  I  am,  I  live  here  for 
you,  in  the  breast  of  God.  As  God  is  just,  you  shall  be 
happy " 

"  Words,  words  all  of  it  !  Pale  and  withered  ?  How  if  I 
want  you  ?  How  if  I  cannot  be  happy  without  you  ?  Do  you 
still  think  of  nothing  but  duty  with  your  lover  before  you  ?  Is 
he  never  to  come  first  and  above  all  things  else  in  your  heart  ? 
In  time  past  you  put  social  success,  yourself,  heaven  knows 
what,  before  him  ;  now  it  is  God,  it  is  the  welfare  of  my  soul  ! 
In  Sister  Theresa  I  find  the  duchess  over  again,  ignorant  of 
the  happiness  of  love,  insensible  as  ever,  beneath  the  sem- 


160  THE    THIRTEEN. 

blance  of  sensibility.  You  do  not  love  me ;  you  have  never 
loved  me " 

"Oh,  my  brother !" 

"You  do  not  wish  to  leave  this  tomb.  You  love  my  soul, 
do  you  say?  Very  well,  through  you  it  will  be  lost  for  ever. 
I  shall  make  away  with  myself " 

"Mother!"  Sister  Theresa  called  aloud  in  Spanish,  "I 
have  lied  to  you ;  this  man  is  my  lover !  " 

The  curtain  fell  at  once.  The  general,  in  his  stupor, 
scarcely  heard  the  doors  within  as  they  clanged  together  with 
violence. 

"Ah!  she  loves  me  still!"  he  cried,  understanding  all 
the  sublimity  of  that  cry  of  hers.  "  She  loves  me  still.  She 
must  be  carried  off." 

The  general  left  the  island,  returned  to  headquarters  on 
the  peninsular,  pleaded  ill-health,  asked  for  leave  of  absence, 
and  forthwith  took  his  departure  for  France. 

And  now  for  the  incidents  which  brought  the  two  per- 
sonages in  this  Scene  into  their  present  relation  to  each 
other. 

The  thing  known  in  France  as  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain 
is  neither  a  quarter,  nor  a  sect,  nor  an  institution,  nor  any- 
thing else  that  admits  of  a  precise  definition.  There  are  great 
houses  in  the  Place  Royale,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore,  and 
the  Chaussee  d'Antin,  in  any  one  of  which  you  may  breathe 
the  atmosphere  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  So,  to  begin 
with,  the  whole  faubourg  is  not  within  the  faubourg.  There 
are  men  and  women  born  far  enough  away  from  its  influences 
who  respond  to  them  and  take  their  place  in  the  circle ;  and 
again  there  are  others,  born  within  its  limits,  who  may  yet  be 
driven  forth  for  ever.  For  the  last  forty  years  the  manners, 
and  customs,  and  speech,  in  a  word,  the  tradition  of  the  Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  have  been  to  Paris  what  the  Court  used 
to  be  to  it  in  other  times;  it  is  what  the  Hotel  Saint-Paul  was 


THE    THIRTEEN.  161 

to  the  fourteenth  century  ;  the  Louvre  to  the  fifteenth  ;  the 
Palais,  the  Hdtel  Rambouillet,  and  the  Place  Royale  to  the 
sixteenth  ;  and  lastly,  as  Versailles  was  to  the  seventeenth  and 
the  eighteenth. 

Just  as  the  ordinary  work-a-day  Paris  will  always  centre 
about  some  point ;  so,  through  all  periods  of  history,  the  Paris 
of  the  nobles  and  the  upper  classes  converges  toward  some 
particular  spot.  It  is  a  periodically  recurrent  phenomenon 
which  presents  ample  matter  for  reflection  to  those  who  are 
fain  to  observe  or  describe  the  various  social  zones ;  and  pos- 
sibly an  inquiry  into  the  causes  that  bring  about  this  centrali- 
zation may  do  more  than  merely  justify  the  probability  of  this 
episode ;  it  may  be  of  service  to  serious  interests  which  some 
day  will  be  more  deeply  rooted  in  the  commonwealth,  unless, 
indeed,  experience  is  as  meaningless  for  political  parties  as 
it  is  for  youth. 

In  every  age  the  great  nobles,  and  the  rich  who  always  ape 
the  great  nobles,  build  their  houses  as  far  as  possible  from 
crowded  streets.  When  the  Due  d'Uzes  built  his  splendid 
hotel  in  the  Rue  Montmartre  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  and 
set  the  fountain  at  his  gates — for  which  beneficent  action,  to 
say  nothing  of  his  other  virtues,  he  was  held  in  such  venera- 
tion that  the  whole  quarter  turned  out  in  a  body  to  follow  his 
funeral — when  the  duke,  I  say,  chose  this  site  for  his  house, 
he  did  so  because  that  part  of  Paris  was  almost  deserted  in 
those  days.  But  when  the  fortifications  were  pulled  down, 
and  the  market  gardens  beyond  the  line  of  the  boulevards 
began  to  fill  with  houses,  then  the  d'Uzes  family  left  their 
fine  mansion,  and  in  our  time  it  was  occupied  by  a  banker. 
Later  still,  the  noblesse  began  to  find  themselves  out  of  their 
element  among  storekeepers,  left  the  Place  Royale  and  the 
centre  of  Paris  for  good,  and  crossed  the  river  to  breathe 
freely  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  where  palaces  were 
reared  already  about  the  great  hotel  built  by  Louis  XIV.*  for 

*  Louis  the  Great. 
11 


162  THE    THIRTEEN. 

the  Due  de  Maine — the  Benjamin  of  his  legitimatized  sons. 
And  indeed,  for  people  accustomed  to  a  stately  life,  can  there 
be  more  unseemly  surroundings  than  the  bustle,  the  mud,  the 
street  cries,  the  bad  smells,  and  narrow  thoroughfares  of.  a 
populous  quarter?  The  very  habits  of  life  in  a  mercantile 
or  manufacturing  district  are'  completely  at  variance  with  the 
lives  of  nobles.  The  storekeeper  and  artisan  are  just  going 
to  bed  when  the  great  world  is  thinking  of  dinner ;  and  the 
noisy  stir  of  life  begins  among  the  former  when  the  latter  have 
gone  to  rest.  Their  day's  calculations  never  coincide;  the 
one  class  represents  the  expenditure,  the  other  the  receipts. 
Consequently  their  manners  and  customs  are  diametrically 
opposed. 

Nothing  contemptuous  is  intended  by  this  statement.  An 
aristocracy  is  in  a  manner  the  intellect  of  the  social  system, 
as  the  middle  classes  and  the  proletariat  may  be  said  to  be  its 
organizing  and  working  power.  It  naturally  follows  that  these 
forces  are  differently  situated  ;  and  of  their  antagonism  there 
is  bred  a  seeming  antipathy  produced  by  the  performance  of 
different  functions,  all  of  them,  however,  existing  for  one  com- 
mon end. 

Such  social  dissonances  are  so  inevitably  the  outcome  of 
any  charter  of  the  Constitution,  that  however  much  a  Liberal 
may  be  disposed  to  complain  of  them,  as  of  treason  against 
those  sublime  ideas  with  which  the  ambitious  plebeian  is  apt 
to  cover  his  designs,  he  would  none  the  less  think  it  a  prepos- 
terous notion  that  M.  le  Prince  de  Montmorency,  for  instance, 
should  continue  to  live  in  the  Rue  Saint-Martin  at  the  corner 
of  the  street  which  bears  that  nobleman's  name  :  or  that  M. 
le  Due  de  Fitz-James,  descendant  of  the  royal  house  of  Scot- 
land, should  have  his  hotel  at  the  angle  of  the  Rue  Marie 
Stuart  and  the  Rue  Montorgueil.  Sint  nt  sunt,  aut  non  stnf, 
the  grand  words  of  the  Jesuit,  might  be  taken  as  a  motto  by 
the  great  in  all  countries.  These  social  differences  are  patent 
in  all  ages ;  the  fact  is  always  accepted  by  the  people  ;  its 


THE    THIRTEEN.  163 

"reasons  of  state"  are  self-evident;  it  is  at  once  cause  and 
effect,  a  principle  and  a  law.  The  commonsense  of  the  masses 
never  deserts  them  until  demagogues  stir  them  up  to  gain  ends 
of  their  own  ;  that  commonsense  is  based  on  the  verities  of 
social  order;  and  the  social  order  is  the  same  everywhere,  in 
Moscow  as  in  London,  in  Geneva  as  in  Calcutta.  Given  a 
certain  number  of  families  of  unequal  fortune  in  any  given 
space,  you  will  see  an  aristocracy  forming  under  your  eyes; 
there  will  be  the  patricians,  the  upper  classes,  and  yet  other 
ranks  below  them.  Equality  may  be  a  right,  but  no  power  on 
earth  can  convert  it  into  fad.  It  would  be  a  good  thing  for 
France  if  this  idea  could  be  popularized.  The  benefits  of 
political  harmony  are  obvious  to  the  least  intelligent  classes. 
Harmony  is,  as  it  were,  the  poetry  of  order,  and  order  is  a  mat- 
ter of  vital  importance  to  the  working  population.  And  what 
is  order,  reduced  to  its  simplest  expression,  but  the  agreement 
of  things  among  themselves — unity,  in  short?  Architecture, 
music,  and  poetry,  everything  in  France,  and  in  France  more 
than  in  any  other  country,  is  based  upon  this  principle ;  it  is 
written  upon  the  very  foundations  of  her  clear,  accurate  lan- 
guage, and  a  language  must  always  be  the  most  infallible 
index  of  national  character.  In  the  same  way  you  may  note 
that  the  French  popular  airs  are  those  most  calculated  to 
strike  the  imagination,  the  best  modulated  melodies  are  taken 
over  by  the  people:  clearness  of  thought,  the  intellectual  sim- 
plicity of  an  idea  attracts  them  ;  they  like  the  incisive  say- 
ings that  hold  the  greatest  number  of  idens.  France  is  the 
one  country  in  the  world  where  a  little  phrase  may  bring 
about  a  great  revolution.  Whenever  the  masses  have  risen. 
it  has  been  to  bring  men,  affairs,  and  principles  into  agree- 
ment. No  nation  has  a  clearer  conception  of  that  idea  of 
unity  which  should  permeate  the  life  of  an  aristocracy  :  pos- 
sibly no  other  nation  has  so  intelligent  a  comprehension  of  a 
political  necessity  ;  history  will  never  find  her  behind  the 
time.  France  has  been  led  astray  many  a  time,  but  she  is 


164  THE    THIRTEEN. 

deluded,  woman-like,  by  generous  ideas,  by  a  glow  of  enthu- 
siasm which  at  first  outstrips  sober  reason. 

So,  to  begin  with,  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  the 
faubourg  is  the  splendor  of  its  great  mansions,  its  great 
gardens,  and  a  surrounding  quiet  in  keeping  with  princely 
revenues  drawn  from  great  estates.  And  what  is  this  distance 
set  between  a  class  and  a  whole  metropolis  but  the  visible  and 
outward  expression  of  the  widely  different  attitude  of  mind 
which  must  inevitably  keep  them  apart  ?  The  position  of  the 
head  is  well  defined  in  every  organism.  If  by  any  chance  a 
nation  allows  its  head  to  fall  at  its  feet,  it  is  pretty  sure  sooner 
or  later  to  discover  that  this  is  a  suicidal  measure  ;  and  since 
nations  have  no  desire  to  perish,  they  set  to  work  at  once  to 
grow  a  new  head.  If  they  lack  the  strength  for  this,  they 
perish  as  Rome  perished,  and  Venice,  and  so  many  other 
states. 

This  distinction  between  the  upper  and  lower  spheres  of 
social  activity,  emphasized  by  differences  in  their  manner  of 
living,  necessarily  implies  that  in  the  highest  aristocracy  there 
is  real  worth  and  some  distinguishing  merit.  In  any  State, 
no  matter  what  form  of  "government  "  is  affected,  so  soon  as 
the  patrician  class  fails  to  maintain  that  complete  superiority 
which  is  the  condition  of  its  existence,  it  ceases  to  be  a  force, 
and  is  pulled  down  at  once  by  the  populace.  The  people 
always  wish  to  see  money,  power,  and  initiative  in  their  lead- 
ers, hands,  hearts,  and  heads  ;  they  must  be  the  spokesmen, 
they  must  represent  the  intelligence  and  the  glory  of  the 
nation.  Nations,  like  women,  love  strength  in  those  who 
rule  them ;  they  cannot  give  love  without  respect ;  they  refuse 
utterly  to  obey  those  of  whom  they  do  not  stand  in  awe.  An 
aristocracy  fallen  into  contempt  is  a  roi  faineant*  a  husband 
in  petticoats;  first  it  ceases  to  be  itself,  and  then  it  ceases  to  be. 

And  in  this  way  the  isolation  of  the  great,  the  sharply 
marked  distinction  in  their  manner  of  life,  or  in  a  word,  the 
*  Lit.;  a  lazy  king. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  165 

general  custom  of  the  patrician  caste  is  at  once  the  sign  of  a 
real  power,  and  their  destruction  so  soon  as  that  power  is  lost. 
The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  failed  to  recognize  the  condi- 
tions of  its  being,  while  it  would  still  have  been  easy  to  per- 
petuate its  existence,  and  therefore  was  brought  low  for  a  time. 
The  faubourg  should  have  looked  the  facts  fairly  in  the  face, 
as  the  English  aristocracy  did  before  them  ;  they  should  have 
seen  that  every  institution  has  its  climacteric  periods,  when 
words  lose  their  old  meanings,  and  ideas  reappear  in  a  new 
guise,  and  the  whole  condition  of  politics  wears  a  changed 
aspect,  while  the  underlying  realities  undergo  no  essential 
alteration. 

These  ideas  demand  further  developments  which  form  an 
essential  part  of  this  episode ;  they  are  given  here  both  as  a 
succinct  statement  of  the  causes  and  an  explanation  of  the 
things  which  happen  in  the  course  of  the  story. 

The  stateliness  of  the  castles  and  palaces  where  nobles 
dwell  ;  the  luxury  of  the  details;  the  constantly  maintained 
sumptuousness  of  the  furniture;  the  "atmosphere"  in  which 
the  fortunate  owner  of  landed  estates  (a  rich  man  before  he 
was  born)  lives  and  moves  easily  and  without  friction  ;  the 
habit  of  mind  which  never  descends  to  calculate  the  petty 
work-a-day  gains  of  existence  ;  the  leisure  ;  the  higher  educa- 
tion attainable  at  a  much  earlier  age;  and  lastly,  the  aristo- 
cratic tradition  that  makes  of  him  a  social  force,  for  which  his 
opponents,  by  dint  of  study  and  a  strong  will  and  tenacity  of 
vocation,  are  scarcely  a  match — nil  these  things  should  con- 
tribute to  form  a  lofty  spirit  in  a  man,  possessed  of  such  privi- 
leges from  his  youth  up  ;  they  should  stamp  his  character  with 
that  high  self-respect,  of  which  the  least  consequence  is  a 
nobleness  of  heart  in  harmony  with  the  noble  name  that  he 
bears.  And  in  some  few  fsmilies  all  this  is  realized.  There 
are  noble  characters  here  and  there  in  the  faubourg,  but  they 
are  marked  exceptions  to  a  general  rule  of  egoism  which  has 
been  the  ruin  of  this  world  within  a  world.  The  privileges 


166  THE    THIRTEEN. 

above  enumerated  are  the  birthright  of  the  French  noblesse, 
as  of  every  patrician  efflorescence  ever  formed  on  the  surface 
of  a  nation;  and  will  continue  to  be  theirs  so  long  as  their 
existence  is  based  upon  real  estate,  or  money ;  domaine-sol  (do- 
main of  the  soil)  and  domainc-argent  (domain  of  money)  alike, 
the  only  solid  bases  of  an  organized  society ;  but  such  privi- 
leges are  held  upon  the  understanding  that  the  patricians  must 
continue  to  justify  their  existence.  There  is  a  sort  of  moral 
fief  held  on  a  tenure  of  service  rendered  to  the  sovereign,  and 
here  in  France  the  people  are  undoubtedly  the  sovereigns 
nowadays.  The  times  are  changed,  and  so  are  the  weapons. 
The  knight-banneret  of  old  wore  a  coat  of  chain-armor  and  a 
hauberk  ;  he  could  handle  a  lance  well  and  display  his  pen- 
non, and  no  more  was  required  of  him  ;  to-day  he  is  bound 
to  give  proof  of  his  intelligence.  A  stout  heart  was  enough 
in  the  days  of  old  ;  in  our  days  he  is  required  to  have  a  capa- 
cious brain-pan.  Skill  and  knowledge  and  capital — these 
three  points  mark  out  a  social  triangle  on  which  the  escutcheon 
of  power  is  blazoned  ;  our  modern  aristocracy  must  take  its 
stand  on  these. 

A  fine  theorem  is  as  good  as  a  great  name.  The  Roths- 
childs, the  Fuggers  of  the  nineteenth  century,  are  princes  de 
facto.  A  great  artist  is  in  reality  an  oligarch  ;  he  represents 
a  whole  century,  and  almost  always  he  is  a  law  to  others. 
And  the  art  of  words,  the  high-pressure  machinery  of  the 
writer,  the  poet's  genius,  the  merchant's  steady  endurance, 
the  strong  will  of  the  statesman  who  concentrates  a  thousand 
•dazzling  qualities  in  himself,  the  general's  sword — all  these 
victories,  in  short,  which  a  single  individual  will  win,  that  he 
may  tower  above  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  patrician  class  is 
now  bound  to  win  and  keep  exclusively.  They  must  head 
the  new  forces  as  they  once  headed  the  material  forces ;  how 
should  they  keep  the  position  unless  they  are  worthy  of  it  ? 
How,  unless  they  arc  the  soul  and  brain  of  a  nation,  shall 
they  set  its  hand  moving?  How  lead  a  people  without  the 


THK    THIRTEEN.  167 

power  of  command?  And  what  is  the  marshal's  baton  with- 
out the  innate  power  of  the  captain  in  the  man  who  wields 
it  ?  The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  took  to  playing  with 
batons,  and  fancied  that  all  ihe  power  was  in  its  hands.  It 
inverted  the  terms  of  the  proposition  which  called  it  into  ex- 
istence. And  instead  of  flinging  away  the  insignia  which 
offended  the  people,  and  quietly  grasping  the  power,  it 
allowed  the  bourgeoisie  to  seize  the  authority,  clung  with  fatal 
obstinacy  to  its  shadow,  and  over  and  over  again  forgot  the 
laws  which  a  minority  must  observe  if  it  would  live.  When 
an  aristocracy  is  scarce  a  thousandth  part  of  the  body  social,  it 
is  bound  to-day,  as  of  old,  to  multiply  its  points  of  action, 
so  as  to  counterbalance  the  weight  of  the  masses  in  a  great 
crisis.  And  in  our  days  those  means  of  action  must  be  living 
forces,  and  not  historical  memories. 

In  France,  unluckily,  the  noblesse  were  still  so  puffed  up 
with  the  notion  of  their  ancient  and  vanished  power,  that  it 
was  difficult  to  contend  against  a  kind  of  innate  presumption 
in  themselves.  Perhaps  this  is  a  national  defect.  The  French- 
man is  less  given  than  any  one  else  to  undervalue  himself;  it 
comes  natural  to  him  to  go  from  his  degree  to  the  one  above 
it ;  and  while  it  is  a  rare  thing  for  him  to  pity  the  unfortunates 
over  whose  heads  he  rises,  he  always  groans  in  spirit  to  see  so 
many  fortunate  people  above  him.  He  is  very  far  from  heart- 
less, but  too  often  he  prefers  to  listen  to  his  intellect.  The 
national  instinct  which  brings  the  Frenchman  to  the  front, 
the  vanity  that  wastes  his  substance,  is  as  much  a  dominant 
passion  as  thrift  in  the  Dutch.  For  three  centuries  it  swayed 
the  noblesse,  who,  in  this  respect,  were  certainly  preeminently 
French.  The  scion  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  behold- 
ing his  material  superiority,  was  fully  persuaded  of  his  intel- 
lectual superiority.  And  everything  contributed  to  confirm 
him  in  his  belief;  for  ever  since  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain 
existed  at  all — which  is  to  say,  ever  since  Versailles  ceased  to 
be  the  royal  residence — the  faubourg,  with  some  few  gaps  in 


168  THE    THIRTEEN. 

continuity,  was  always  backed  up  by  the  central  power,  which 
in  France  seldom  fails  to  support  that  side.  Thence  its  down- 
fall in  1830. 

At  that  time  the  party  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  was 
rather  like  an  army  without  a  base  of  operations.  It  had 
utterly  failed  to  take  advantage  of  the  peace  to  plant  itself  in 
the  heart  of  the  nation.  It  sinned  for  want  of  learning  its  lesson, 
and  through  an  utter  incapability  of  regarding  its  interests  as 
a  whole.  A  future  certainty  was  sacrificed  to  a  doubtful  pres- 
ent gain.  This  blunder  in  policy  may  perhaps  be  attributed 
to  the  following  cause  : 

The  class-isolation  so  strenuously  kept  up  by  the  noblesse 
brought  about  fatal  results  during  the  last  forty  years;  even 
caste-patriotism  was  extinguished  by  it,  and  rivalry  fostered 
among  themselves.  When  the  French  noblesse  of  other 
times  were  rich  and  powerful,  the  nobles  (gcntilhommcs)  could 
choose  their  chiefs  and  obey  them  in  the  hour  of  danger. 
As  their  power  diminished,  they  grew  less  amenable  to  dis- 
cipline ;  and  as  in  the  last  days  of  the  Byzantine  Empire, 
everyone  wished  to  be  emperor.  They  mistook  their  uniform 
weakness  for  uniform  strength. 

Each  family  ruined  by  the  Revolution  and  the  abolition  of 
the  law  of  primogeniture  thought  only  of  itself,  and  not  at  all 
of  the  great  family  of  its  caste.  It  seemed  to  them  that  as 
each  individual  grew  rich,  the  party  as  a  whole  would  gain  in 
strength.  And  herein  lay  their  mistake.  Money,  likewise, 
is  only  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  power.  All  these 
families  were  made  up  of  persons  who  preserved  a  high 
tradition  of  courtesy,  of  true  graciousness  of  life,  of  refined 
speech,  with  a  family  pride,  and  a  squeamish  sense  of  noblesse 
oblige*  which  suited  well  with  the  kind  of  life  they  led  ;  a  life 
wholly  filled  with  occupations  which  become  contemptible  so 
soon  as  they  cease  to  be  accessories  and  take  the  chief  place 
in  existence.  There  was  a  certain  intrinsic  merit  in  all  these 
*  The  obligations  of  a  noble's  life. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  169 

people,  out  the  merit  was  on  the  surface,  and  none  of  them 
were  worth  their  face-value. 

Not  a  single  one  among  those  families  had  courage  to  ask 
itself  the  question,  •'  Are  we  strong  enough  for  the  responsi- 
bility of  power?"  They  were  cast  on  the  top,  like  the 
lawyers  of  1830;  and  instead  of  taking  the  patron's  place, 
like  a  great  man,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  showed  itself 
greedy  as  an  upstart.  The  most  intelligent  nation  in  the  world 
perceived  clearly  that  the  restored  nobles  were  organizing 
everything  for  their  own  particular  benefit.  From  that  day 
the  noblesse  was  doomed.  The  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  tried 
to  be  an  aristocracy  when  it  could  only  be  an  oligarchy — two 
very  different  systems,  as  any  man  may  see  for  himself  if  he 
gives  an  intelligent  perusal  to  the  list  of  the  patronymics  of 
the  House  of  Peers. 

The  King's  Government  certainly  meant  well  ;  but  the 
maxim  that  the  people  must  be  made  to  will  everything,  even 
their  own  welfare,  was  pretty  constantly  forgotten,  nor  did 
they  bear  in  mind  that  La  France  is  a  woman  and  capricious, 
and  must  be  happy  or  chastised  at  her  own  good  pleasure.  If 
there  had  been  many  dukes  like  the  Due  dc  Laval,  whose 
modesty  made  him  worthy  of  the  name  he  bore,  the  elder 
branch  would  have  been  as  securely  seated  on  the  throne  as 
the  House  of  Hanover  at  this  day. 

In  1814  the  noblesse  of  France  were  called  upon  to  assert 
their  superiority  over  the  most  aristocratic  bourgeoisie  in  the 
most  feminine  of  all  countries,  to  take  the  lead  in  the  most 
highly  educated  epoch  the  world  had  yet  seen.  And  this  was 
even  more  notably  the  case  in  1820.  The  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain  might  very  easily  have  led  and  amused  the  middle 
classes  in  days  when  people's  heads  were  turned  with  distinc- 
tions, and  art  and  science  were  all  the  rage.  But  the  narrow- 
minded  leaders  of  a  time  of  great  intellectual  progress  all  of 
them  detested  art  and  science.  They  had  not  even  the  wit 
to  present  religion  in  attractive  colors,  though  they  needed 


170  THE    THIRTEEN. 

its  support.  While  Lamartine,  Lamennais,  Montalembert, 
and  other  writers  were  putting  new  life  and  elevation  into 
men's  ideas  of  religion,  and  gilding  it  with  poetry,  these 
bunglers  in  the  Government  chose  to  make  the  harshness  of 
their  creed  felt  all  over  the  country.  Never  was  nation  in  a 
more  tractable  humor ;  La  France,  like  a  tired  woman,  was 
ready  to  agree  to  anything ;  never  was  mismanagement  so 
clumsy ;  and  La  France,  like  a  woman,  would  have  forgiven 
wrongs  more  easily  than  bungling. 

If  the  noblesse  meant  to  reinstate  themselves,  the  better  to 
found  a  strong  oligarchy,  they  should  have  honestly  and  dili- 
gently searched  their  houses  for  men  of  the  stamp  that  Na- 
poleon used ;  they  should  have  turned  themselves  inside  out 
to  see  if  peradventure  there  was  a  Constitutionalist  Richelieu 
lurking  in  the  entrails  of  the  faubourg  ;  and  if  that  genius  was 
not  forthcoming  from  among  them,  they  should  have  set  out 
to  find  him,  even  in  the  fireless  garret  where  he  might  happen 
to  be  perishing  of  cold  ;  they  should  have  assimilated  him,  as 
the  English  House  of  Lords  continually  assimilates  aristocrats 
made  by  chance ;  and  finally  ordered  him  to  be  ruthless,  to 
lop  away  the  old  wood,  and  cut  the  tree  down  to  the  living 
shoots.  But,  in  the  first  place,  the  great  system  of  English 
Toryism  was  far  too  large  for  narrow  minds ;  the  importation 
required  time,  and  in  France  a -tardy  success  is  no  better  than 
a  fiasco.  So  far,  moreover,  from  adopting  a  policy  of  re- 
demption, and  looking  for  new  forces  where  God  puts  them, 
these  petty  great  folk  took  a  dislike  to  any  capacity  that  did 
not  issue  from  their  midst ;  and,  lastly,  instead  of  growing 
young  again,  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  grew  positively 
older. 

Etiquette,  not  an  institution  of  primary  necessity,  might 
have  been  maintained  if  it  had  appeared  only  on  state  occa- 
sions, but  as  it  was,  there  was  a  daily  wrangle  over  precedence; 
it  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of  art  or  Court  ceremonial,  it  became 
a  question  of  power.  And  if  from  the  outset  the  Crown  lacked 


THE    THIRTEEN.  171 

an  adviser  equal  to  so  great  a  crisis,  the  aristocracy  was  still 
more  lacking  in  a  sense  of  its  wider  interests,  an  instinct  which 
might  have  supplied  the  deficiency.  They  stood  nice  about 
M.  de  Talleyrand's  marriage,  when  M.  de  Talleyrand  was  the 
one  man  among  them  with  the  steel-encompassed  brains  that 
can  forge  a  new  political  system  and  begin  a  new  career  of 
glory  for  a  nation.  The  faubourg  scoffed  at  a  minister  if  he 
was  not  gentle  born,  and  produced  no  one  of  gentle  birth  that 
was  fit  to  be  a  minister.  There  were  plenty  of  nobles  fitted  to 
serve  their  country  by  raising  the  dignity  of  justices  of  the 
peace,  by  improving  the  land,  by  opening  out  roads  and 
canals,  and  taking  an  active  and  leading  part  as  country  gen- 
tlemen ;  but  these  had  sold  their  estates  to  gamble  on  the 
Stock  Exchange.  Again,  the  faubourg  might  have  absorbed 
the  energetic  men  among  the  bourgeoise,  and  opened  their 
ranks  to  the  ambition  which  was  undermining  authority  ;  they 
preferred  instead  to  fight,  and  to  fight  unarmed,  for  of  all  that 
they  once  possessed  there  was  nothing  left  but  tradition.  For 
their  misfortune  there  was  just  precisely  enough  of  their  former 
wealth  left  them  as  a  class  to  keep  up  their  bitter  pride.  They 
were  content  with  their  past.  Not  one  of  them  seriously 
thought  of  bidding  the  son  of  the  house  take  up  arms  from  the 
pile  of  weapons  which  the  nineteenth  century  flings  down  in 
the  market-place.  Young  men,  shut  out  from  office,  were  dan- 
cing at  MADAMK'S  balls,  while  they  should  have  been  doing 
the  work  done  under  the  Republic  and  the  Empire  by  young, 
conscientious,  harmlessly  employed  energies.  It  was  their 
place  to  carry  out  at  Paris  the  programme  which  their  seniors 
should  have  been  following  in  the  country.  The  heads  of 
houses  might  have  won  back  recognition  of  their  titles  by  un- 
remitting attention  to  local  interests,  by  falling  in  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  by  recasting  their  order  to  suit  the  taste  of 
the  times. 

But,  pent  up  together  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  where 
the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Court  and  traditions  of  bygone  feuds 


172  THE    THIRTEEN. 

between  the  nobles  and  the  Crown  still  lingered  on,  the  aris- 
tocracy was  not  whole-hearted  in  its  allegiance  to  the  Tuileries, 
and  so  much  the  more  easily  defeated  because  it  was  concen- 
trated in  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  and  badly  organized  even 
there.  If  the  noblesse  had  woven  themselves  into  a  network 
over  the  country,  they  could  have  held  their  own  ;  but  cooped 
up  in  their  faubourg,  with  their  backs  against  the  chateau,  or 
spread  at  full  length  over  the  budget,  a  single  blow  cut  the 
thread  of  a  fast-expiring  life,  and  a  petty,  smug-faced  lawyer 
came  forward  with  the  axe.  In  spite  of  M.  Royer-Collard's 
admirable  discourse,  the  hereditary  peerage  and  law  of  entail 
fell  before  the  lampoons  of  a  man  who  made  it  a  boast  that  he 
had  adroitly  argued  some  few  heads  out  of  the  executioner's 
clutches,  and  now  forsooth  must  clumsily  proceed  to  the 
slaying  of  old  institutions. 

There  are  examples  and  lessons  for  the  future  in  all  this. 
For  if  there  were  not  still  a  future  before  the  French  aristoc- 
racy, there  would  be  no  need  to  do  more  than  find  a  suitable 
sarcophagus ;  it  were  something  pitilessly  cruel  to  burn  the 
dead  body  of  it  with  fire  of  Tophet.  But  though  the  sur- 
geon's scalpel  is  ruthless,  it  sometimes  gives  back  life  to  a 
dying  man  ;  and  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  may  wax  more 
powerful  under  persecution  than  in  its  day  of  triumph,  if  it  but 
chooses  to  organize  itself  under  a  leader. 

And  now  it  is  easy  to  give  a  summary  of  this  semi-political 
survey.  The  wish  to  reestablish  a  large  fortune  was  upper- 
most in  every  one's  mind ;  a  lack  of  broad  views,  and  a  mass 
of  small  defects,  a  real  need  of  religion  as  a  political  factor, 
combined  with  a  thirst  for  pleasure  which  damaged  the  cause  of 
religion  and  necessitated  a  good  deal  of  hypocrisy ;  a  certain 
attitude  of  protest  on  the  part  of  loftier  and  clearer-sighted 
men  who  set  their  faces  against  Court  jealousies ;  and  the  dis- 
affection of  the  provincial  families,  who  often  came  of  purer 
descent  than  the  nobles  of  the  Court  which  alienated  them 
from  itself — all  these  things  combined  to  bring  about  a  most 


THE    THIRTEEN.  173 

discordant  state  of  things  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  It 
was  neither  compact  in  its  organization,  nor  consequent  in  its 
action;  neither  completely  moral,  nor  frankly  dissolute;  it 
did  not  corrupt,  nor  was  it  corrupted  ;  it  would  neither  wholly 
abandon  the  disputed  points  which  damaged  its  cause,  nor  yet 
adopt  the  policy  that  might  have  saved  it.  In  short,  however 
effete  individuals  might  be,  the  party  as  a  whole  was  none  the 
less  armed  with  all  the  great  principles  which  lie  at  the  roots 
of  national  existence.  What  was  there  in  the  faubourg  that 
it  should  perish  in  its  strength? 

It  was  very  hard  to  please  in  the  choice  of  candidates ;  the 
faubourg  had  good  taste,  it  was  scornfully  fastidious,  yet  there 
was  nothing  very  glorious  nor  chivalrous  truly  about  its  fall. 

In  the  Emigration  of  1789  there  were  some  traces  of  a 
loftier  feeling  ;  but  in  the  Emigration  of  1830  from  Paris  into 
the  country  there  was  nothing  discernible  but  self-interest.  A 
few  famous  men  of  letters,  a  few  oratorical  triumphs  in  the 
Chambers,  M.  de  Talleyrand's  attitude  in  the  Congress, 
the  taking  of  Algiers,  and  not  a  few  names  that  found  their 
way  from  the  battlefield  into  the  pages  of  history — all  these 
things  were  so  many  examples  set  before  the  French  noblesse 
to  show  that  it  was  still  open  to  them  to  take  their  part  in  the 
national  existence,  and  to  win  recognition  of  their  claims,  if, 
indeed,  they  could  condescend  thus  far.  In  every  living  or- 
ganism the  work  of  bringing  the  whole  into  harmony  within 
itself  is  always  going  on.  If  a  man  is  indolent,  the  indolence 
shows  itself  in  everything  that  he  does;  and,  in  the  same 
manner,  the  general  spirit  of  a  class  is  pretty  plainly  mani- 
fested in  the  face  it  turns  on  the  world,  and  the  soul  informs 
the  body. 

The  women  of  the  Restoration  displayed  neither  the  proud 
disregard  of  public  opinion  shown  by  the  Court  ladies  of  olden 
time  in  their  wantonness  nor  yet  the  simple  grandeur  of  the 
tardy  virtues  by  which  they  expiated  their  sins  and  shed  so 
bright  a  glory  about  their  names.  There  was  nothing  either 


174  THE    THIRTEEN. 

very  frivolous  or  very  serious  about  the  woman  of  the  Restora- 
tion. She  was  hypocritical  as  a  rule  in  her  passion,  and  com- 
pounded, so  to  speak,  with  its  pleasures.  Some  few  families 
led  the  domestic  life  of  the  Duchesse  d'Orleans,  whose  con- 
nubial couch  was  exhibited  so  absurdly  to  visitors  at  the  Palais 
Royal.  Two  or  three  kept  up  the  traditions  of  the  Regency, 
filling  cleverer  women  with  something  like  disgust.  The 
great  lady  of  the  new  school  exercised  no  influence  at  all  over 
the  manners  of  the  time;  and  yet  she  might  have  done  much. 
She  might,  at  worst,  have  presented  as  dignified  a  spectacle  as 
Englishwomen  of  the  same  rank.  But  she  hesitated  feebly 
among  old  precedents,  became  a  bigot  by  force  of  circum- 
stances, and  allowed  nothing  of  herself  to  appear,  not  even 
her  better  qualities. 

Not  one  among  the  Frenchwomen  of  that  day  had  the  abil- 
ity to  create  a  salon  whither  leaders  of  fashion  might  come  to 
take  lessons  in  taste  and  elegance.  Their  voices,  which  once 
laid  down  the  law  to  literature,  that  living  expression  of  a 
time,  now  counted  absolutely  for  naught.  Now  when  a  litera- 
ture lacks  a  general  system,  it  fails  to  shape  a  body  for  itself, 
and  dies  out  with  its  period. 

When  in  a  nation  at  any  time  there  is  a  people  apart  thus 
constituted,  the  historian  is  pretty  certain  to  find  some  repre- 
sentative figure,  some  central  personage,  who  embodies  the 
qualities  and  the  defects  of  the  whole  party  to  which  he  be- 
longs ;  there  is  Coligny,  for  instance,  among  the  Huguenots, 
the  Coadjuteur  in  the  time  of  the  Fronde,  the  Marechal  de 
Richelieu  under  Louis  XV.,  Danton  during  the  Terror.  It  is 
in  the  nature  of  things  that  the  man  should  be  identified  with 
the  company  in  which  history  finds  him.  How  is  it  possible 
to  lead  a  party  without  conforming  to  its  ideas  ?  or  to  shine 
in  any  epoch  unless  a  man  represents  the  ideas  of 'his  time? 
The  wise  and  prudent  head  of  a  party  is  continually  obliged 
to  bow  to  the  prejudices  and  follies  of  its  rear;  and  this  is  the 
cause  of  actions  for  which  he  is  afterward  criticised  by  this  or 


THE    THIRTEEN.  175 

that  historian  sitting  at  a  safer  distance  from  terrific  popular 
explosions,  coolly  judging  the  passion  and  ferment  without 
which  the  great  struggles  of  the  world  could  not  be  carried  on 
at  all.  And  if  this  is  true  of  the  Historical  Comedy  of  the 
centuries,  it  is  equally  true  in  a  more  restricted  sphere  in  the 
detached  scenes  of  the  national  drama  known  as  the  "Manners 
of  the  Age." 

At  the  beginning  of  that  ephemeral  life  led  by  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Germain  under  the  Restoration,  to  which,  if  there  is  any 
truth  in  the  above  reflections,  they  failed  to  give  stability,  the 
most  perfect  type  of  the  aristocratic  caste  in  its  weakness  and 
strength,  its  greatness  and  littleness,  might  have  been  found 
for  a  brief  space  in  a  young  married  woman  who  belonged  to 
it.  This  was  a  woman  artificially  educated,  but  in  reality 
ignorant ;  a  woman  whose  instincts  and  feelings  were  lofty, 
while  the  thought  which  should  have  controlled  them  was 
wanting.  She  squandered  the  wealth  of  her  nature  in  obedi- 
ence to  social  conventions ;  she  was  ready  to  brave  society, 
yet  she  hesitated  till  her  scruples  degenerated  into  artifice. 
With  more  willfulness  than  real  force  of  character,  impression- 
able rather  than  enthusiastic,  gifted  with  more  brain  than 
heart ;  she  was  supremely  a  woman,  supremely  a  coquette, 
and  above  all  things  a  Parisiennc,  loving  a  brilliant  life  and 
gayety.  reflecting  never,  or  too  late  ;  imprudent  to  the  verge 
of  poetry,  and  humble  in  the  depths  of  her  heart,  in  spite  of 
her  charming  insolence.  Like  some  straight-growing  reed, 
she  made  a  show  of  independence;  yet,  like  the  reed,  she  was 
ready  to  bend  to  a  strong  hand.  She  talked  much  of  religion, 
and  had  it  not  at  heart,  though  she  was  prepared  to  find  in  it 
a  solution  of  her  life.  How  explain  a  creature  so  complex? 
Capable  of  heroism,  yet  sinking  unconsciously  from  heroic 
heights  to  utter  a  spiteful  word  ;  young  and  sweet-natured, 
not  so  much  old  at  heart  as  aged  by  the  maxims  of  those  about 
her  ;  versed  in  a  selfish  philosophy  in  which  she  was  all  un- 


176  THE    THIRTEEN. 

practiced,  she  had  all  the  vices  of  a  courtier,  all  the  nobleness 
of  developing  womanhood.  She  trusted  nothing  and  no  one, 
yet  there  were  times  when  she  quitted  her  skeptical  attitude 
for  a  submissive  credulity. 

How  should  any  portrait  be  anything  but  incomplete  of 
her,  in  whom  the  play  of  swiftly  changing  color  made  discord 
only  to  produce  a  poetic  confusion  ?  for  in  her  there  shone  a 
divine  brightness,  a  radiance  of  youth  that  blended  all  her 
bewildering  characteristics  in  a  certain  completeness  and  unity 
informed  by  her  charm.  Nothing  was  feigned.  The  passion 
or  semi-passion,  the  ineffectual  high  aspirations,  the  actual 
pettiness,  the  coolness  of  sentiment  and  warmth  of  impulse, 
were  all  spontaneous  and  unaffected,  and  as  much  the  outcome 
of  her  own  position  as  of  the  position  of  the  aristocracy  to 
which  she  belonged.  She  was  wholly  self-contained  ;  she  held 
herself  proudly  above  the  world  and  beneath  the  shelter  of 
her  name.  There  was  something  of  the  egoism  of  Medea  in 
her  life,  as  in  the  life  of  the  aristocracy  that  lay  a-dying,  and 
would  not  so  much  as  raise  itself  or  stretch  out  a  hand  to  any 
political  physician  ;  so  well  aware  of  its  feebleness,  or  so  con- 
scious that  it  was  already  dust,  that  it  refused  to  touch  or  be 
touched. 

The  Duchesse  de  Langeais  (for  that  was  her  name)  had 
been  married  for  about  four  years  when  the  Restoration  was 
finally  consummated,  which  is  to  say,  in  1816.  By  that  time 
the  revolution  of  the  Hundred  Days  had  let  in  the  light  on 
the  mind  of  Louis  XVIII.  In  spite  of  his  surroundings,  he 
comprehended  the  situation  and  the  age  in  which  he  was 
living;  and  it  was  only  later,  when  this  Louis  XL,  without 
the  axe,  lay  stricken  down  by  disease,  that  those  about  him 
got  the  upper  hand.  The  Duchesse  de  Langeais,  a  Navarreins 
by  birth,  came  of  a  ducal  house  which  had  made  a  point  of 
never  marrying  below  its  rank  since  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 
Every  daughter  of  the  house  had  the  right  and  must  sooner  or 
later  take  a  tabouret  (seat)  at  Court.  So,  Antoinette  de  Navar- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  177 

reins,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  came  out  of  the  profound  solitude 
in  which  her  girlhood  had  been  spent  to  marry  the  Due  de 
Langeais'  eldest  son.  The  two  families  at  that  time  were 
living  quite  out  of  the  world  ;  but  after  the  invasion  of 
France,  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  seemed  to  every  Royalist 
mind  the  only  possible  way  of  putting  an  end  to  the  miseries 
of  the  war. 

The  Dues  de  Navarreins  and  de  Langeais  had  been  faithful 
throughout  to  the  exiled  princes,  nobly  resisting  all  the  temp- 
tations of  glory  under  the  Empire.  Underthecircumstanc.es 
they  naturally  followed  out  the  old  family  policy ;  and  Mile. 
Antoinette,  a  beautiful  and  portionless  girl,  was  married  to 
M.  le  Marquis  de  Langeais  only  a  few  months  before  the 
death  of  the  duke  his  father. 

After  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  the  families  resumed  their 
rank,  offices,  and  dignity  at  Court  ;  once  more  they  entered 
public  life,  from  which  hitherto  they  had  held  aloof,  and  took 
their  place  high  on  the  sun-lit  summits  of  the  new  political 
world.  In  that  time  of  general  baseness  and  sham  political 
conversions,  the  public  conscience  was  glad  to  recognize  the 
unstained  loyalty  of  the  two  houses,  and  a  consistency  in 
political  and  private  life  for  which  all  parties  involuntarily 
respected  them.  But,  unfortunately,  as  so  often  happens  in  a 
time  of  transition,  the  most  disinterested  persons,  the  men 
whose  loftiness  of  view  and  wise  principles  would  have  gained 
the  confidence  of  the  French  nation  and  led  them  to  believe 
in  the  generosity  of  a  novel  and  spirited  policy;  these  men, 
to  repeat,  were  taken  out  of  affairs,  and  public  business  was 
allowed  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  others,  who  found  it  to  their 
interest  to  push  principles  to  their  extreme  consequences  by 
way  of  proving  their  devotion. 

The  families  of  Langeais  and  Navarreins  remained  about 
the   Court,   condemned   to  perform   the  duties    required    by 
Court  ceremonial  amid  the  reproaches  and  sneers  of  the  Lib- 
eral  party.     They  were  accused  of  gorging  themselves  with 
12 


178  THE    THIRTEEN. 

riches  and  honors,  and  all  the  while  their  family  estates  were 
no  larger  than  before,  and  liberal  allowances  from  the  civil 
list  were  wholly  expended  in  keeping  up  the  state  necessary 
for  any  European  government,  even  if  it  be  a  republic. 

In  1818,  M.  le  Due  de  Langeais  commanded  a  division  of 
the  army,  and  the  duchess  held  a  post  about  one  of  the  prin- 
cesses, in  virtue  of  which  she  was  free  to  live  in  Paris  and 
apart  from  her  husband  without  scandal.  The  duke,  more- 
over, beside  his  military  duties,  had  a  place  at  Court,  to 
which  he  came  during  his  term  of  waiting,  leaving  his  major- 
general  in  command.  The  duke  and  duchess  were  leading 
lives  entirely  apart,  separated  both  in  fact  and  feeling,  the 
world  none  the  wiser.  Their  marriage  of  convention  shared 
the  fate  of  nearly  all  family  arrangements  of  the  kind.  Two 
more  antipathetic  dispositions  could  not  well  have  been 
found ;  they  were  brought  together ;  they  jarred  upon  each 
other ;  there  was  soreness  on  either  side  ;  thus  they  were  divided 
once  for  all.  Then  they  went  their  separate  ways,  with  a  due 
regard  for  appearances.  The  Due  de  Langeais,  by  nature  as 
methodical  as  the  Chevalier  de  Folard,  gave  himself  up 
methodically  to  his  own  tastes  and  amusements,  and  left  his 
wife  at  liberty  to  do  as  she  pleased  so  soon  as  he  felt  sure  of 
her  character.  He  recognized  in  her  a  spirit  preeminently 
proud,  a  cold  heart,  a  profound  submissiveness  to  the  usages 
of  the  world,  and  a  youthful  loyalty.  Under  the  eyes  of 
great  relations,  with  the  light  of  a  prudish  and  bigoted  Court 
turned  full  upon  the  duchess,  his  honor  was  safe. 

So  the  duke  calmly  did  as  the  great  lords  of  the  eighteenth 
century  did  before  him,  and  left  a  young  wife  of  two-and- 
twenty  to  her  own  devices.  He  had  deeply  offended  that 
wife,  and  in  her  nature  there  was  one  appalling  characteristic 
— she  would  never  forgive  an  offense  when  woman's  vanity 
and  self-love,  with  all  that  was  best  in  her  nature,  perhaps, 
had  been  slighted,  wounded  in  secret.  Insult  and  injury  in 
the  face  of  the  world  a  woman  loves  to  forget ;  there  is  a  way 


THE    THIRTEEN.  179 

open  to  her  of  showing  herself  great ;  she  is  a  woman  in  her 
forgiveness;  but  a  secret  offense  women  never  pardon;  for 
secret  baseness,  as  for  hidden  virtues  and  hidden  love,  they 
have  no  kindness. 

This  was  Mme.  la  Duchesse  de  Langeais'  real  position, 
unknown  to  the  world.  She  herself  did  not  reflect  upon  it. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  rejoicings  over  the  Due  de  Bern's 
marriage.  The  Court  and  the  faubourg  roused  itself  from  its 
listlessness  and  reserve.  This  was  the  real  beginning  of  that 
unheard-of  splendor  which  the  Government  of  the  Restoration 
carried  too  far.  At  that  time  the  duchess,  whether  for  reasons 
of  her  own,  or  from  vanity,  never  appeared  in  public  without 
a  following  of  women  equally  distinguished  by  name  and  for- 
tune. As  queen  of  fashion  she  had  her  dames  <f  ateurs,  her 
ladies,  who  modeled  their  manner  and  their  wit  on  hers. 
They  had  been  cleverly  chosen.  None  of  her  satellites  be- 
longed to  the  inmost  Court  circle,  not  to  the  highest  level  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  ;  but  they  had  set  their  minds 
upon  admission  to  those  inner  sanctuaries.  Being  as  yet 
simple  dominations,  they  wished  to  rise  to  the  neighborhood 
of  the  throne,  and  mingle  with  the  seraphic  powers  in  the 
high  sphere  known  as  "  le  petit  chateau."  Thus  surrounded, 
the  duchess'  position  was  stronger  and  more  commanding  and 
secure.  Her  "ladies"  defended  her  character  and  helped 
her  to  play  her  detestable  part  of  a  woman  of  fashion.  She 
could  laugh  at  men  at  her  ease,  play  with  fire,  receive  the 
homage  on  which  the  feminine  nature  is  nourished,  and 
remain  mistress  of  herself. 

At  Paris,  in  the  highest  society  of  all,  a  woman  is  a  woman 
still;  she  lives  on  incense,  adulation,  and  honors.  No  beauty, 
however  undoubted,  no  face,  however  fair,  is  anything  with- 
out admiration.  Flattery  and  a  lover  are  proofs  of  power. 
And  what  is  power  without  recognition?  Nothing.  If  the 
prettiest  of  women  were  left  alone  in  a  corner  of  a  drawing- 
room,  she  would  droop.  Put  her  in  the  very  centre  and  sum- 


ISO  THE    THIRTEEN. 

mit  of  socia.  grandeur,  she  will  at  once  aspire  to  reign  over 
all  hearts — often  because  it  is  out  of  her  power  to  be  the 
happy  queen  of  one.  Dress  and  manner  and  coquetry  are  all 
meant  to  please  one  of  the  poorest  creatures  extant — the  brain- 
less coxcomb,  whose  handsome  face  is  his  sole  merit ;  it  was 
for  such  as  these  that  women  threw  themselves  away.  The 
gilded  wooden  idols  of  the  Restoration,  for  they  were  neither 
more  nor  less,  had  neither  the  antecedents  of  the  petits 
maitres  (little  masters)  of  the  time  of  the  Fronde,  nor  the 
rough  sterling  worth  of  Napoleon's  heroes,  not  the  wit  and 
fine  manners  of  their  grandsires ;  but  something  of  all  three 
they  meant  to  be  without  any  trouble  to  themselves.  Brave 
they  were,  like  all  young  Frenchmen ;  ability  they  possessed, 
no  doubt,  if  they  had  had  a  chance  of  proving  it,  but  their 
places  were  filled  up  by  the  old  worn-out  men,  who  kept  them 
in  leading  strings.  It  was  a  day  of  small  things,  a  cold 
prosaic  era.  Perhaps  it  takes  a  long  time  for  a  Restoration  to 
become  a  Monarchy. 

For  the  past  eighteen  months  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  had 
been  leading  this  empty  life,  filled  with  balls  and  subsequent 
visits,  objectless  triumphs,  and  the  transient  loves  that  spring 
up  and  die  in  an  evening's  space.  All  eyes  were  turned  on 
her  when  she  entered  a  room ;  she  reaped  her  harvest  of  flat- 
teries and  some  few  words  of  warmer  admiration,  which  she 
encouraged  by  a  gesture  or  a  glance,  but  never  suffered  to  pene- 
trate deeper  than  the  skin.  Her  tone  and  bearing  and  every- 
thing else  about  her  imposed  her  will  upon  others.  Her  life 
was  a  sort  of  fever  of  vanity  and  perpetual  enjoyment,  which 
turned  her  head.  She  was  daring  enough  in  conversation ; 
she  would  listen  to  anything,  corrupting  the  surface,  as  it  were, 
of  her  heart.  Yet,  when  she  returned  home,  she  often  blushed 
at  the  story  that  had  made  her  laugh ;  at  the  scandalous  tale 
that  supplied  the  details,  on  the  strength  of  which  she  analyzed 
the  love  that  she  had  never  known,  and  marked  the  subtle  dis- 
tinctions of  modern  passion,  not  without  comment  on  the  part 


THE    THIRTEEN.  181 

of  complacent  hypocrites.  For  women  know  how  to  say 
everything  among  themselves,  and  more  of  them  are  ruined 
by  each  other  than  corrupted  by  men. 

There  came  a  moment  when  she  discerned  that  not  until  a 
women  is  loved  will  the  world  fully  recognize  her  beauty  and 
her  wit.  What  does  a  husband  prove  ?  Simply  that  a  girl  or 
woman  was  endowed  with  wealth,  or  well  brought  up;  that 
her  mother  managed  cleverly  ;  that  in  some  way  she  satisfied 
a  man's  ambitions.  A  lov^-r  constantly  bears  witness  to  her 
personal  perfections.  Then  followed  the  discovery,  still  in 
Mme.  de  Langcais1  early  womanhood,  that  it  was  possible  to 
be  loved  without  committing  herself,  without  permission, 
without  vouchsafing  any  satisfaction  beyond  the  most  meagre 
dues.  There  was  more  than  one  demure  feminine  hypocrite 
to  instruct  her  in  the  art  of  playing  such  dangerous  comedies. 

So  the  duchess  had  her  court,  and  the  number  of  her  adorers 
and  courtiers  guaranteed  her  virtue.  She  was  amiable  and 
fascinating;  she  flirted  till  the  ball  or  the  evening's  gayety 
was  at  an  end.  Then  the  curtain  dropped.  She  was  cold, 
indifferent,  self-contained  again,  till  the  next  day  brought  its 
renewed  sensations,  superficial  as  before.  Two  or  three  men 
were  completely  deceived,  and  fell  in  love  in  earnest.  She 
laughed  at  them,  she  was  utterly  insensible.  "I  am  loved  !  " 
she  told  herself.  "He  loves  me  !"  The  certainty  sufficed 
her.  It  is  enough  for  the  miser  to  know  that  his  every  whim 
might  be  fulfilled  if  he  chose  ;  so  it  was  with  the  duchess,  and 
perhaps  she  did  not  even  go  so  far  as  to  form  a  wish. 

One  evening  she  chanced  to  be  at  the  house  of  an  intimate 
friend,  Mine,  la  Vicomtesse  de  Fontaine,  one  of  the  humble 
rivals  who  cordially  detested  her,  and  went  with  her  everywhere. 
In  a  "  friendship"  of  this  sort  both  sides  are  on  their  guard, 
and  never  lay  their  armor  aside  ;  confidences  are  ingeniously 
indiscreet,  and  not  infrequently  treacherous.  Mme.  de  Lan- 
geais  had  distributed  her  little  patronizing,  friendly,  or  freezing 
bows,  with  the  air  natural  to  a  woman  who  knows  the  worth 


182  THE    THIRTEEN. 

of  her  smiles,  when  her  eyes  fell  upon  a  total  stranger.  Some- 
thing in  the  man's  large  gravity  of  aspect  startled  her,  and, 
with  a  feeling  almost  like  dread,  she  turned  to  Mme.  de  Mau- 
frigneuse  with  :  "  Who  is  the  new-comer,  dear?  " 

"  Some  one  that  you  have  heard  of,  no  doubt.  The  Mar- 
quis de  Montriveau." 

"Oh!  is  it  he?" 

She  took  up  her  eyeglass  and  submitted  him  to  a  very  inso- 
lent scrutiny,  as  if  he  had  been  a  picture  meant  to  receive 
glances,  not  to  return  them. 

"  Do  introduce  him ;  he  ought  to  be  interesting." 

"  Nobody  more  tiresome  and  dull,  dear.  But  he  is  the 
fashion." 

M.  Armand  de  Montriveau,  at  that  moment  all  unwittingly 
the  object  of  general  curiosity,  better  deserved  attention  than 
any  of  the  idols  that  Paris  needs  must  set  up  to  worship  for  a 
brief  space,  for  the  city  is  vexed  by  periodical  fits  of  craving, 
a  passion  for  infatuation  and  sham  enthusiasm,  which  must  be 
satisfied.  The  marquis  was  the  only  son  of  General  de  Mon- 
triveau, one  of  the  ci-devants  who  served  the  Republic  nobly, 
and  fell  by  Joubert's  side  at  Novi.  Bonaparte  had  placed 
his  son  at  the  school  at  Chalons,  with  the  orphans  of  other 
generals  who  fell  on  the  battlefield,  leaving  their  children 
under  the  protection  of  the  Republic.  Armand  de  Montri- 
veau left  school  with  his  way  to  make,  entered  the  artillery, 
and  had  only  reached  a  major's  rank  at  the  time  of  the  Fon- 
tainebleau  disaster.  In  his  section  of  the  service  the  chances 
of  advancement  were  not  many.  There  are  fewer  officers,  in 
the  first  place,  among  the  gunners  than  in  any  other  corps ; 
and  in  the  second  place,  the  feeling  in  the  artillery  was  de- 
cidedly Liberal,  not  to  say  Republican  ;  and  the  Emperor, 
feeling  little  confidence  in  a  body  of  highly  educated  men 
who  were  apt  to  think  for  themselves,  gave  promotion  grudg- 
ingly in  the  service.  In  the  artillery,  accordingly,  the  general 


THE    THIRTEEN.  182 

rule  of  the  army  did  not  apply  ;  the  commanding  officers  were 
not  invariably  the  most  remarkable  men  in  their  department, 
because  there  was  less  to  be  feared  from  mediocrities.  The 
artillery  was  a  separate  corps  in  those  days,  and  only  came 
under  Napoleon  in  action. 

Beside  these  general  causes,  other  reasons,  inherent  in 
Armand  de  Montriveau's  character,  were  sufficient  in  them- 
selves to  account  for  his  tardy  promotion.  He  was  alone  in 
the  world.  He  had  been  thrown  at  the  age  of  twenty  into 
the  whirlwind  of  men  directed  by  Napoleon  ;  his  interests 
were  bounded  by  himself,  any  day  he  might  lose  his  life;  it 
became  a  habit  of  mind  with  him  to  live  by  his  own  self- 
respect  and  the  consciousness  that  he  had  done  his  duty. 
Like  all  shy  men,  he  was  habitually  silent ;  but  his  shyness 
sprang  by  no  means  from  timidity  ;  it  was  a  kind  of  modesty 
in  him  ;  he  found  any  demonstration  of  vanity  intolerable. 
There  was  no  sort  of  swagger  about  his  fearlessness  in  action  ; 
nothing  escaped  his  eyes;  he  could  give  sensible  advice  to  his 
chums  with  unshaken  coolness ;  he  could  go  under  fire,  and 
dodge  upon  occasion  to  avoid  bullets.  He  was  kindly;  but 
his  expression  was  haughty  and  stern,  and  his  face  gained  him 
this  character.  In  everything  he  was  rigorous  as  arithmetic  ; 
he  never  permitted  the  slightest  deviation  from  duty  on  any 
plausible  pretext,  nor  blinked  the  consequences  of  a  fact.  He 
would  lend  himself  to  nothing  of  which  he  was  ashamed  ;  he 
never  asked  anything  for  himself;  in  short,  Armand  de  Mon- 
triveau  was  one  of  many  great  men  unknown  to  fame,  and 
philosophical  enough  to  despise  it ;  living  without  attaching 
themselves  to  life,  because  they  have  not  found  their  oppor- 
tunity of  developing  to  the  full  their  power  to  do  and  feel. 

People  were  afraid  of  Montriveau  ;  they  respected  him,  but 
he  was  not  very  popular.  Men  may  indeed  allow  you  to  rise 
above  them,  but  to  decline  to  descend  as  low  as  they  is  the 
one  unpardonable  sin.  In  their  feeling  toward  loftier  natures, 
there  is  a  trace  of  hate  and  fear.  Too  much  honor  with  them 


184  THE    THIRTEEN. 

implies  censure  of  themselves,  a  thing  forgiven  neither  to  the 
living  nor  to  the  dead. 

After  the  Emperor's  farewell  at  Fontainebleau,  Montriveau, 
noble  though  he  was,  was  put  on  half-pay.  Perhaps  the  heads 
of  the  War  Office  took  fright  at  uncompromising  uprightness 
worthy  of  antiquity,  or  perhaps  it  was  known  that  he  felt 
bound  by  his  oath  to  the  imperial  eagle.  During  the  Hun- 
dred Days  he  was  made  a  colonel  of  the  Guard,  and  left  on 
the  field  of  Waterloo.  His  wounds  kept  him  in  Belgium ;  he 
was  not  present  at  the  disbanding  of  the  Army  of  the  Loire, 
but  the  King's  government  declined  to  recognize  promotion 
made  during  the  Hundred  Days,  and  Armand  de  Montriveau 
left  France. 

An  adventurous  spirit,  a  loftiness  of  thought  hitherto  satis- 
fied by  the  hazards  of  war,  drove  him  on  an  exploring  expedi- 
tion through  Upper  Egypt ;  his  sanity  of  impulse  directed  his 
enthusiasm  to  a  project  of  great  importance,  he  turned  his 
attention  to  that  unexplored  Central  Africa  which  occupies 
the  learned  of  to-day.  The  scientific  expedition  was  long 
and  unfortunate.  He  had  made  a  valuable  collection  of  notes 
-bearing  on  various  geographical  and  commercial  problems,  of 
which  solutions  are  still  eagerly  sought ;  and  succeeded,  after 
surmounting  many  obstacles,  in  reaching  the  heart  of  the  con- 
tinent, when  he  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  a  hostile  native 
tribe.  Then,  stripped  of  all  that  he  had,  for  two  years  he  led  a 
wandering  life  in  the  desert,  the  slave  of  savages,  threatened 
with  death  at  every  moment,  and  more  cruelly  treated  than  a 
dumb  animal  in  the  power  of  pitiless  children.  Physical 
strength,  and  a  mind  braced  to  endurance,  enabled  him  to  sur- 
vive the  horrors  of  that  captivity ;  but  his  miraculous  escape 
well-nigh  exhausted  his  energies.  When  he  reached  the  French 
colony  at  Senegal,  a  half-dead  fugitive  covered  with  rags,  his 
memories  of  his  former  life  were  dim  and  shapeless.  The  great 
sacrifices  made  in  his  travels  were  all  forgotten  like  his  studies 
of  African  dialects,  his  discoveries,  and  observations.  One 


THE    THIRTEEN.  18G 

story  will  give  an  idea  of  all  that  he  passed  through.  Once 
for  several  days  the  children  of  the  sheikh  of  the  tribe  amused 
themselves  by  putting  him  up  for  a  mark  and  flinging  horses' 
knuckle-bones  at  his  head. 

Montriveau  came  back  to  Paris  in  1818  a  ruined  man.  He 
had  no  interest,  and  wished  for  none.  He  would  have  died 
twenty  times  over  sooner  than  ask  a  favor  of  any  one ;  he 
would  not  even  press  the  recognition  of  his  claims.  Adversity 
and  hardship  had  developed  his  energy  even  in  trifles,  while 
the  habit  of  preserving  his  self-respect  before  that  spiritual  self 
which  we  call  conscience  led  him  to  attach  consequence  to  the 
most  apparently  trivial  actions.  His  merits  and  adventures 
became  known,  however,  through  his  acquaintances,  among 
the  principal  men  of  science  in  Paris,  and  some  few  well-read 
military  men.  The  incidents  of  his  slavery  and  subsequent 
escape  bore  witness  to  a  courage,  intelligence,  and  coolness 
which  won  him  celebrity  without  his  knowledge,  and  that 
transient  fame  of  which  Paris  salons  are  lavish,  though  the 
artist  that  fain  would  keep  it  must  make  untold  efforts. 

Montriveau's  position  suddenly  changed  toward  the  end  of 
that  year.  He  had  been  a  poor  man,  he  was  now  rich  ;  or, 
externally  at  any  rate,  he  had  all  the  advantages  of  wealth. 
The  King's  government,  trying  to  attach  capable  men  to  itself 
and  to  strengthen  the  army,  made  concessions  about  that  time 
to  Napoleon's  old  officers  if  their  known  loyalty  and  character 
offered  guarantees  of  fidelity.  M.  de  Montriveau's  name  once 
more  appeared  in  the  army  list  with  the  rank  of  colonel ;  he 
received  his  arrears  of  pay  and  passed  into  the  Guards.  All 
these  favors,  one  after  another,  came  to  seek  the  Marquis 
de  Montriveau  ;  he  had  asked  for  nothing,  however  small. 
Friends  had  taken  the  steps  for  him  which  he  would  have  re- 
fused to  take  for  himself. 

After  this,  his  habits  were  modified  all  at  once ;  contrary  to 
his  custom,  he  went  into  society.  He  was  well  received, 
everywhere  he  met  with  great  deference  and  respect.  He 


186  THE    THIRTEEN. 

seemed  to  have  found  some  end  in  life ;  but  everything  passed 
within  the  man,  there  were  no  external  signs ;  in  society  he 
was  silent  and  cold,  and  wore  a  grave,  reserved  face.  His 
social  success  was  great,  precisely  because  he  stood  out  in  such 
strong  contrast  to  the  conventional  facts  which  line  the  walls 
of  Paris  salons.  He  was,  indeed,  something  quite  new  there. 
Terse  of  speech,  like  a  hermit  or  a  savage,  his  shyness  was 
thought  to  be  haughtiness,  and  people  were  greatly  taken  with 
it.  He  was  something  strange  and  great.  Women  generally 
were  so  much  the  more  smitten  with  this  original  person  be- 
cause he  was  not  to  be  caught  by  their  flatteries,  however 
adroit,  nor  by  the  wiles  with  which  they  circumvent  the 
strongest  men  and  corrode  the  steel  temper.  Their  Parisian 
grimaces  were  lost  upon  M.  de  Montriveau  ;  his  nature  only 
responded  to  the  sonorous  vibration  of  lofty  thought  and 
feeling.  And  he  would  very  promptly  have  been  dropped 
but  for  the  romance  that  hung  about  his  adventures  and  his 
life ;  but  for  the  men  who  cried  him  up  behind  his  back  ;  but 
for  a  woman  who  looked  for  a  triumph  for  her  vanity,  the 
woman  who  was  to  fill  his  thoughts. 

For  these  reasons  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais'  curiosity  was 
no  less  lively  than  natural.  Chance  had  so  ordered  it  that 
her  interest  in  the  man  before  her  had  been  aroused  only  the 
day  before,  when  she  heard  the  story  of  one  of  M.  de  Montri- 
veau's  adventures,  a  story  calculated  to  make  the  strongest  im- 
pression upon  a  woman's  ever-changing  fancy. 

During  M.  de  Montriveau's  voyage  of  discovery  to  the 
sources  of  the  Nile,  he  had  had  an  argument  with  one  of  his 
guides,  surely  the  most  extraordinary  debate  in  the  annals  of 
travel.  The  district  that  he  wished  to  explore  could  only  be 
reached  on  foot  across  a  tract  of  desert.  Only  one  of  his 
guides  knew  the  way  ;  no  traveler  had  penetrated  before  into 
that  part  of  the  country,  where  ^he  undaunted  officer  hoped  to 
find  a  solution  of  several  scientific  problems.  In  spite  of  the 
representations  made  to  him  by  the  guide  and  the  older  men 


THE    THIRTEEN.  187 

of  the  place,  he  started  upon  the  formidable  journey.  Sum- 
moning up  courage,  already  highly  strung  by  the  prospect  of 
dreadful  difficulties,  he  set  out  in  the  morning. 

The  loose  sand  shifted  under  his  feet  at  every  step  ;  and 
when,  at  the  end  of  a  long  day's  march,  he  lay  down  to  sleep 
on  the  ground,  he  had  never  been  so  tired  in  his  life.  He 
knew,  however,  that  he  must  be  up  and  on  his  way  before 
dawn  next  day,  and  his  guide  assured  him  that  they  should 
reach  the  end  of  their  journey  toward  noon.  That  promise 
kept  up  his  courage  and  gave  him  new  strength.  In  spite  of 
his  sufferings,  he  continued  his  march,  with  some  blasphemings 
against  science  ;  he  was  ashamed  to  complain  to  his  guide,  and 
kept  his  pain  to  himself.  After  marching  for  a  third  of  the 
day,  he  felt  his  strength  failing,  his  feet  were  bleeding,  he 
asked  if  they  should  reach  the  place  soon.  "In  an  hour's 
time,"  said  the  guide.  Armand  braced  himself  for  another 
hour's  march,  and  they  went  on. 

The  hour  slipped  by ;  he  could  not  so  much  as  see  against 
the  sky  the  palm-trees  and  crests  of  hill  that  should  tell  of 
the  end  of  the  journey  near  at  hand  ;  the  horizon-line  of  sand 
was  vast  as  the  circle  of  the  open  sea. 

He  came  to  a  stand,  refused  to  go  farther,  and  threatened 
the  guide — he  had  deceived  him,  murdered  him  ;  tears  of  rage 
and  weariness  flowed  over  his  fevered  cheeks  ;  he  was  bowed 
down  with  fatigue  upon  fatigue,  his  throat  seemed  to  be  glued 
by  the  desert  thirst.  The  guide  meanwhile  stood  motionless, 
listening  to  these  complaints  with  an  ironical  expression, 
studying  the  while,  with  the  apparent  indifference  of  an  Ori- 
ental, the  scarcely  perceptible  indications  in  the  lay  of  the 
sands,  which  looked  almost  black  in  its  reflections,  like  bur- 
nished gold. 

"  I  have  made  a  mistake,"  he  remarked  coolly.  "  I  could 
not  make  out  the  track,  it  is  so  long  since  I  came  this  way  ; 
we  are  most  surely  on  it  now,  but  we  must  push  on  for  two 
hours  longer." 


188  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"The  man  is  right,"  thought  M.  de  Montriveau. 

So  he  went  on  again,  struggling  to  follow  the  pitiless  native. 
It  seemed  as  if  he  were  bound  to  his  guide  by  some  cord  like 
the  invisible  bond  between  the  condemned  man  and  the 
headsman.  But  the  two  hours  went  by,  Montriveau  had  spent 
his  last  drops  of  energy,  and  the  sky-line  was  a  blank,  there 
were  no  palm-trees,  no  hills.  He  could  neither  cry  out  nor 
groan,  he  lay  down  on  the  sand  to  die,  but  his  eyes  would 
have  frightened  the  boldest ;  something  in  his  face  seemed  to 
say  that  he  would  not  die  alone.  His  guide,  like  a  very  fiend, 
gave  him  back  a  cool  glance  like  a  man  that  knows  his  power, 
left  him  to  lie  there,  and  kept  at  a  safe  distance  out  of  reach 
of  his  desperate  victim.  At  last  M.  Montriveau  recovered 
strength  enough  for  a  last  curse.  The  guide  came  nearer, 
silenced  him  with  a  steady  look,  and  said :  "Was  it  not  your 
own  will  to  go  where  I  am  taking  you,  in  spite  of  us  all  ? 
You  say  that  I  have  lied  to  you.  If  I  had  not,  you  would  not 
be  even  here.  Do  you  want  the  truth  ?  Here  it  is  :  We  have 
still  another  five  hours'  march  before  us,  and  we  cannot  go  back. 
Sound  yourself;  if  you  have  not  courage  enough,  here  is  my 
dagger." 

Startled  by  this  dreadful  knowledge  of  pain  and  human 
strength,  M.  de  Montriveau  would  not  be  behind  a  savage; 
he  drew  a  fresh  stock  of  courage  from  his  pride  as  a  European, 
rose  to  his  feet,  and  followed  his  guide.  The  five  hours  were 
at  an  end,  and  still  M.  de  Montriveau  saw  nothing,  he  turned 
his  failing  eyes  upon  his  guide  ;  but  the  Nubian  hoisted  him 
on  his  shoulders,  and  showed  him  a  wide  pool  of  water  with 
greenness  all  about  it,  and  a  noble  forest  lighted  up  by  the 
sunset.  It  lay  only  a  hundred  paces  away ;  a  vast  ledge  of 
granite  hid  the  glorious  landscape.  It  seemed  to  Armand 
that  he  had  taken  a  new  lease  of  life.  His  guide,  that  giant 
in  courage  and  intelligence,  finished  his  work  of  devotion  by 
carrying  him  across  the  hot,  slippery,  scarcely  discernible 
track  on  the  granite.  Behind  him  lay  the  hell  of  burning 


SOUND     YOURSELF;     IF    YOU    HAVE    NOT    COURAGE     ENOUGH, 
HERE    IS    MY    DAGGER." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  189 

sand,  before  him  the  earthly  paradise  of  the  most  beautiful 
oasis  in  the  desert. 

The  duchess,  struck  from  the  first  by  the  appearance  of  this 
romantic  figure,  was  even  more  impressed  when  she  learned 
that  this  was  that  Marquis  de  Montriveau  of  whom  she  had 
dreamed  during  the  night.  She  had  been  with  him  among 
the  hot  desert  sands,  he  had  been  the  companion  of  her  night- 
mare wanderings ;  for  such  a  woman  was  not  this  a  delightful 
presage  of  a  new  interest  in  her  life?  And  never  was  a  man's 
exterior  a  better  exponent  of  his  character  ;  never  were  curious 
glances  so  well  justified.  The  principal  characteristic  of  his 
great,  square-hewn  head  was  the  thick,  luxuriant  black  hair 
which  framed  his  face,  and  gave  him  a  strikingly  close  resem- 
blance to  General  Kleber ;  and  the  likeness  still  held  good  in 
the  vigorous  forehead,  in  the  outlines  of  his  face,  the  quiet 
fearlessness  of  his  eyes,  and  a  kind  of  fiery  vehemence  expressed 
by  strongly  marked  features.  He  was  short,  deep-chested, 
and  muscular  as  a  lion.  There  was  something  of  the  despot 
about  him.  and  an  indescribable  suggestion  of  the  security  of 
strength  in  his  gait,  bearing,  and  slightest  movement.  He 
seemed  to  know  that  his  will  was  irresistible,  perhaps  because 
he  willed  only  that  which  was  right.  And  yet,  like  all  really 
strong  men,  he  was  mild  of  speech,  simple  in  his  manners, 
and  kindly  natured  ;  although  it  seemed  as  if,  in  the  stress  of 
a  great  crisis,  all  these  finer  qualities  must  disappear,  and  the 
man  would  show  himself  implacable,  unshaken  in  his  resolve, 
terrific  in  action.  There  was  a  certain  drawing  in  of  the 
inner  line  of  the  lips  which,  to  a  close  observer,  indicated  an 
ironical  bent. 

The  D'-ichesse  de  Langeais,  realizing  that  a  fleeting  glory 
was  to  be  won  by  such  a  conquest,  made  up  her  mind  to  gain 
a  lover  in  Armand  de  Montriveau  during  the  brief  interval 
before  the  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  brought  him  to  be  intro- 
duced. She  would  prefer  him  above  the  others  ;  she  would 
attach  him  to  herself,  display  all  her  powers  of  coquetry  for 


190  THE    THIRTEEN. 

him.  It  was  a  fancy,  such  a  mere  duchess'  whim  as  furnished 
a  Lope  or  a  Calderon  with  the  plot  of  the  "Dog  in  the 
Manger."  She  would  not  suffer  another  woman  to  engross 
him;  but  she  had  not  the  remotest  intention  of  being  his. 

Nature  had  given  the  duchess  every  qualification  for  the 
part  of  coquette,  and  education  had  perfected  her.  Women 
envied  her,  and  men  fell  in  love  with  her,  not  without  reason. 
Nothing  that  can  inspire  love,  justify  it,  and  give  it  lasting 
empire  was  wanting  in  her.  Her  style  of  beauty,  her  manner, 
her  voice,  her  bearing,  all  combined  to  give  her  that  instinc- 
tive coquetry  which  seems  to  be  the  consciousness  of  power. 
Her  shape  was  graceful ;  perhaps  there  was  a  trace  of  self- 
consciousness  in  her  changes  of  movement,  the  one  affecta- 
tion that  could  be  laid  to  her  charge  ;  but  everything  about 
her  was  a  part  of  her  personality,  from  her  least  little  gesture 
to  the  peculiar  turn  of  her  phrases,  the  demure  glance  of  her 
eyes.  Her  great  lady's  grace,  her  most  striking  characteristic, 
had  not  destroyed  the  very  French  quick  mobility  of  her  per- 
son. There  was  an  extraordinary  fascination  in  her  swift, 
incessant  changes  of  attitude.  She  seemed  as  if  she  surely 
would  be  a  most  delicious  mistress  when  her  corset  and  the 
encumbering  costume  of  her  part  was  laid  aside.  All  the 
rapture  of  love  surely  was  latent  in  the  freedom  of  her  ex- 
pressive glances,  in  her  caressing  tones,  in  the  charm  of  her 
words.  She  gave  glimpses  of  the  high-born  courtesan  within 
her,  vainly  protesting  against  the  creeds  of  the  duchess. 

You  might  sit  near  her  through  an  evening,  she  would  be 
gay  and  melancholy  in  turn,  and  her  gayety,  like  her  sadness, 
seemed  spontaneous.  She  could  be  gracious,  disdainful,  inso- 
lent, or  confiding  at  will.  Her  apparent  good-nature  was 
real;  she  had  no  temptation  to  descend  to  malignity.  But  at 
each  moment  her  mood  changed  ;  she  was  full  of  confidence 
or  craft ;  her  moving  tenderness  would  give  place  to  a  heart- 
breaking hardness  and  insensibility.  Yet  how  paint  her  as 
she  was,  without  bringing  together  all  the  extremes  of  femi- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  191 

nine  nature?  In  a  word,  the  duchess  was  anything  that  she 
wished  to  be  or  to  seem.  Her  face  was  slightly  too  long. 
There  was  a  grace  in  it,  and  a  certain  thinness  and  fineness 
that  recalled  the  portraits  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Her  skin  was 
white,  with  a  faint  rose  tint.  Everything  about  her  erred,  as 
it  were,  by  an  excess  of  delicacy. 

M.  de  Montriveau  willingly  consented  to  be  introduced  to 
the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  ;  and  she,  after  the  manner  of  per- 
sons whose  sensitive  taste  leads  them  to  avoid  banalities,  re- 
frained from  overwhelming  him  witli  questions  and  compli- 
ments. She  received  him  with  a  gracious  deference  which 
could  not  fail  to  flatter  a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  powers, 
for  the  fact  that  a  man  rises  above  the  ordinary  level  implies 
that  he  possesses  something  of  that  tact  which  makes  women 
quick  to  read  feeling.  If  the  duchess  showed  any  curiosity, 
it  was  by  her  glances ;  her  compliments  were  conveyed  in  her 
manner  ;  there  was  a  winning  grace  displayed  in  her  words,  a 
subtle  suggestion  of  a  desire  to  please  which  she  of  all  women 
knew  the  art  of  manifesting.  Yet  her  whole  conversation  was 
but,  in  a  manner,  the  body  of  the  letter;  the  postscript  with 
the  principal  thought  in  it  was  still  to  come.  After  half  an 
hour  spent  in  ordinary  chat,  in  which  the  words  gained  all 
their  value  from  her  tone  and  smiles,  M.  de  Montriveau  was 
about  to  retire  discreetly,  when  the  duchess  stopped  him  wilh 
an  expressive  gesture. 

"  I  do  not  know,  monsieur,  whether  these  few  minutes  dur- 
ing which  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  to  you  proved  so 
sufficiently  attractive  that  I  may  venture  to  ask  you  to  call 
upon  me  ;  I  am  afraid  that  it  may  be  very  selfish  of  me  to  wish 
to  have  you  all  to  myself.  If  I  should  be  so  fortunate  as  to 
find  that  my  house  is  agreeable  to  you,  you  will  always  find 
me  at  home  in  the  evening  until  ten  o'clock." 

The  invitation  was  given  with  such  irresistible  grace  that 
M.  de  Montriveau  could  not  refuse  to  accept  it.  When  he 
fell  back  again  among  the  groups  of  men  gathered  at  a  dis- 


192  THE    THIRTEEN. 

tance  from  the  women,  his  friends  congratulated  him,  half 
laughingly,  half  in  earnest,  -on  the  extraordinary  reception 
vouchsafed  him  by  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais.  The  difficult 
and  brilliant  conquest  had  been  made  beyond  a  doubt,  and 
the  glory  of  it  was  reserved  for  the  Artillery  of  the  Guard. 
It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  jests,  good  and  bad,  when  this  topic 
had  once  been  started ;  the  world  of  Paris  salons  is  so  eager 
for  amusement,  and  a  joke  lasts  for  such  a  short  time,  that 
every  one  is  eager  to  pluck  the  flower  while  it  blooms. 

All  unconsciously,  the  general  felt  flattered  by  this  non- 
sense. From  his  place  where  he  had  taken  his  stand,  his  eyes 
were  drawn  again  and  again  to  the  duchess  by  countless 
wavering  reflections.  He  could  not  help  admitting  to  him- 
self that  of  all  the  women  whose  beauty  had  captivated  his 
eyes,  not  one  had  seemed  to  be  a  more  exquisite  embodiment 
of  faults  and  fair  qualities  blended  in  a  completeness  that 
might  realize  the  dreams  of  earliest  manhood.  Is  there  a  man 
in  any  rank  of  life  that  has  not  felt  indefinable  rapture  in  his 
secret  soul  over  the  woman  singled  out  (if  only  in  his  dreams) 
to  be  his  own  ;  when  she,  in  body,  soul,  and  social  aspects, 
satisfies  his  every  requirement,  a  thrice  perfect  woman  ?  And 
if  this  threefold  perfection  that  flatters  his  pride  is  no  argu- 
ment for  loving  her,  it  is  beyond  cavil  one  of  the  great  in- 
ducements to  the  sentiment.  Love  would  soon  be  convales- 
cent, as  the  eighteenth-century  moralist  remarked,  were  it  not 
for  vanity.  And  it  is  certainly  true  that  for  every  one,  man 
or  woman,  there  is  a  wealth  of  pleasure  in  the  superiority  of 
the  beloved.  Is  she  set  so  high  by  birth  that  a  contemptuous 
glance  can  never  wound  her  ?  is  she  wealthy  enough  to  sur- 
round herself  with  state  which  falls  nothing  short  of  royalty 
of  kings  of  finance  during  their  short  reign  of  splendor?  is 
she  so  ready-witted  that  a  keen-edged  jest  never  brings  her 
into  confusion  ?  beautiful  enough  to  rival  any  woman  ?  Is  it 
such  a  small  thing  to  know  that  your  self-love  will  never  suffer 
through  her?  A  man  makes  these  reflections  in  the  twink- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  193 

ling  of  an  eye.  And  how  if,  in  the  future  opened  out  by 
early  ripened  passion,  he  catches  glimpses  of  the  changeful 
delight  of  her  charm,  the  frank  innocence  of  a  maiden  soul, 
the  perils  of  love's  voyage,  the  thousand  folds  of  the  veil  of 
coquetry?  Is  not  this  enough  to  move  the  coldest  man's 
heart  ? 

This,  therefore,  was  M.  de  Montriveau's  position  with  re- 
gard to  woman  ;  his  past  life  in  some  measure  explaining  the 
extraordinary  fact.  He  had  been  thrown,  when  little  more 
than  a  boy,  into  the  hurricane  of  Napoleon's  wars ;  his  life 
had  been  spent  on  fields  of  battle.  Of  women  he  knew  just 
so  much  as  a  traveler  knows  of  a  country  when  he  travels 
across  it  in  haste  from  one  inn  to  another.  The  verdict  which 
Voltaire  passed  upon  his  eighty  years  of  life  might,  perhaps, 
have  been  applied  by  Montriveau  to  his  own  thirty-seven  years 
of  existence ;  had  he  not  thirty-seven  follies  with  which  to  re- 
proach  himself?  At  his  age  he  was  as  much  a  novice  in  love 
as  the  lad  that  has  just  been  furtively  reading  "  Faublas."  Of 
women  he  had  nothing  to  learn  ;  of  love  he  knew  nothing ; 
and  thus,  desires,  quite  unknown  before,  sprang  from  this  vir- 
ginity of  feeling. 

There  are  men  here  and  there  as  much  engrossed  in  the 
work  demanded  of  them  by  poverty  or  ambition,  art  or  sci- 
ence, as  M.  de  Montriveau  by  war  and  a  life  of  adventure — 
these  know  what  it  is  to  be  in  this  unusual  position  if  they 
very  seldom  confess  to  it.  Every  man  in  Paris  is  supposed  to 
have  been  in  love.  No  woman  in  Paris  cares  to  take  what 
other  women  have  passed  over.  The  dread  of  being  taken 
for  a  fool  is  the  source  of  the  coxcomb'o  bragging  so  common 
in  France ;  for  in  France  to  have  the  reputation  of  a  fool  is 
to  be  a  foreigner  in  one's  own  country.  Vehement  desire 
seized  on  M.  de  Montriveau,  desire  that  had  gathered  strength 
from  the  heat  of  the  desert  and  the  first  stirrings  of  a  heart 
unknown  as  yet  in  its  suppressed  turbulence.  A  strong  man, 
and  violent  as  he  was  strong,  he  could  keep  mastery  over 
13 


194  THE    THIRTEEN. 

himself;  but  as  he  talked  of  indifferent  things,  he  retired 
within  himself,  and  swore  to  possess  this  woman,  for  through 
that  thought  lay  the  only  way  to  love  for  him.  Desire  be- 
came a  solemn  compact  made  with  himself,  an  oath  after  the 
manner  of  the  Arabs  among  whom  he  had  lived  ;  for  among 
them  a  vow  is  a  kind  of  contract  made  with  Destiny,  a  man's 
whole  future  is  solemnly  pledged  to  fulfill  it,  and  everything, 
even  his  own  death,  is  regarded  simply  as  a  means  to  the  one 
end. 

A  younger  man  would  have  said  to  himself:  "  I  should  very 
much  like  to  have  the  duchess  for  my  mistress  !  "  or,  "If  the 
Duchesse  de  Langeais  cared  for  a  man,  he  would  be  a  very 
lucky  rascal !  "  But  the  general  said  :  "  I  will  have  Madame 
de  Langeais  for  my  mistress."  And  if  a  man  takes  such  an 
idea  into  his  head  when  his  heart  has  never  been  touched 
before,  and  love  begins  to  be  a  kind  of  religion  with  him,  he 
little  knows  into  what  a  hell  he  has  set  his  foot. 

Armand  de  Montriveau  suddenly  took  flight  and  went  home 
in  the  first  hot  fever-fit  of  the  first  love  that  he  had  known. 
When  a  man  has  kept  all  his  boyish  beliefs,  illusions,  frank- 
ness, and  impetuosity  into  middle  age,  his  first  impulse  is,  as  it 
were,  to  stretch  out  a  hand  to  take  the  thing  that  he  desires ; 
a  little  later  he  realizes  that  there  is  a  gulf  set  between  them, 
and  that  it  is  all  but  impossible  to  cross  it.  A  sort  of  childish 
impatience  seizes  him,  he  wants  the  thing  the  more,  and 
trembles  or  cries.  Wherefore,  the  next  day,  after  the  storm- 
iest reflections  that  had  yet  perturbed  his  mind,  Armand 
de  Montriveau  discovered  that  he  was  under  the  yoke  of  the 
senses,  and  his  bondage  made  the  heavier  by  his  love. 

The  woman  so  cavalierly  treated  in  his  thoughts  of  yesterday 
had  become  a  most  sacred  and  dreadful  power.  She  was  to 
be  his  world,  his  life,  from  this  time  forth.  The  greatest 
joy,  the  keenest  anguish,  that  he  had  yet  known  grew  color- 
less before  the  bare  recollection  of  the  least  sensation  stirred 
in  him  by  her,  The  swiftest  revolutions  in  a  man's  outward 


THE    THIRTEEN.  19o 

life  only  touch  his  interests,  while  passion  brings  a  complete 
revulsion  of  feeling.  And  so  in  those  who  live  by  feeling, 
rather  than  by  self-interest,  the  doers  rather  than  the  reasoners, 
the  sanguine  rather  than  the  lymphatic  temperaments,  love 
works  a  complete  revolution.  In  a  flash,  with  one  single 
reflection,  Armand  de  Montriveau  wiped  out  his  whole  pai>t 
life. 

A  score  of  times  he  asked  himself,  like  a  boy  :  "  Shall  I 
go,  or  shall  I  not  ?  "  and  then  at  last  he  dressed,  went  to  the 
Hotel  de  Langeais  toward  eight  o'clock  that  evening,  and  was 
admitted.  He  was  to  see  the  woman — ah  !  not  the  woman — 
the  idol  that  he  had  seen  yesterday,  among  lights,  a  fresh  in- 
nocent girl  in  gauze  and  silken  lace  and  veiling.  He  burst 
in  upon  her  to  declare  his  love,  as  if  it  were  a  question  of 
firing  the  first  shot  on  a  field  of  battle. 

Poor  novice  !  He  found  his  ethereal  sylphide  shrouded  in 
a  brown  cashmere  dressing-gown  ingeniously  befrilled,  lying 
languidly  stretched  out  upon  a  divan  in  a  dimly  lighted 
boudoir.  Mme.  de  Langeais  did  not  so  much  as  rise,  nothing 
was  visible  of  her  but  her  face;  her  hair  was  loose  but  con- 
fined by  a  scarf.  A  hand  indicated  a  seat,  a  hand  that  seemed 
white  as  marble  to  Montriveau  by  the  flickering  light  of  a 
single  candle  at  the  farther  side  of  the  room,  and  a  voice  as 
soft  as  the  light  said — 

"  If  it  had  been  any  one  else,  Monsieur  le  Marquis,  a 
friend  with  whom  I  could  dispense  with  ceremony,  or  a  mere 
acquaintance  in  whom  I  felt  but  slight  interest,  I  should  have 
closed  my  door.  I  am  exceedingly  unwell." 

"I  will  go,"  Armand  said  to  himself. 

"But  I  do  not  know  how  it  is,"  she  continued  (and  the 
simple  warrior  attributed  the  shining  of  her  eyes  to  fever), 
"  perhaps  it  was  a  presentiment  of  your  kind  visit  (and  no  one 
can  be  more  sensible  of  the  prompt  attention  than  1^,  but  the 
vapors  have  left  my  head." 

"Then  may  I  stay?" 


196  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Oh,  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  have  you  go.  I  told  myself 
this  morning  that  it  was  impossible  that  I  should  have  made 
the  slightest  impression  on  your  mind,  and  that  in  all  proba- 
bility you  took  my  request  for  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
which  Parisians  are  lavish  on  every  occasion.  And  I  forgave 
your  ingratitude  in  advance.  An  explorer  from  the  deserts  is 
not  supposed  to  know  how  exclusive  we  are  in  our  friendships 
in  the  faubourg." 

The  gracious,  half-murmured  words  dropped  one  by  one,  as 
if  they  had  been  weighted  with  the  gladness  that  apparently 
brought  them  to  her  lips.  The  duchess  meant  to  have  the 
full  benefit  of  her  headache,  and  her  speculation  was  fully 
successful.  The  general,  poor  man,  was  really  distressed  by 
the  lady's  simulated  distress.  Like  Crillon  listening  to  the 
story  of  the  Crucifixion,  he  was  ready  to  draw  his  sword 
against  the  vapors.  How  could  a  man  dare  to  speak  just 
then  to  this  suffering  woman  of  the  love  that  she  inspired? 
Armand  had  already  felt  that  it  would  be  absurd  to  fire  off  a 
declaration  of  love  point-blank  at  one  so  far  above  other 
women.  With  a  single  thought  came  understanding  of  the 
delicacies  of  feeling,  of  the  soul's  requirements.  To  love : 
what  was  that  but  to  know  how  to  plead,  to  beg  for  alms,  to 
wait  ?  And  as  for  the  love  that  he  felt,  must  he  not  prove  it  ? 
His  tongue  was  mute,  it  was  frozen  by  the  conventions  of  the 
noble  faubourg,  the  majesty  of  a  sick  headache,  the  bashful- 
ness  of  love.  But  no  power  on  earth  could  veil  his  glances ; 
the  heat  and  the  Infinite  of  the  desert  blazed  in  eyes,  calm  as 
a  panther's,  beneath  the  lids  that  fell  so  seldom.  The  duchess 
enjoyed  the  steady  gaze  that  enveloped  her  in  light  and 
warmth. 

"Madame  la  Duchesse,"  he  answered,  "I  am  afraid  I  ex- 
press my  gratitude  for  your  goodness  very  badly.  At  this 
moment  I  have  but  one  desire — I  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to 
£ure  the  pain." 

"Permit   me   to  throw  this  off,  I   feel   too  warm    now," 


THE    THIRTEEN.  197 

she  said,  gracefully  tossing  aside  a  cushion  that  covered  her 
feet. 

•'Madame,  in  Asia  your  feet  would  be  worth  some  ten 
thousand  sequins." 

"  A  traveler's  compliment  !  "  smiled  she. 

It  pleased  the  sprightly  lady  to  involve  a  rough  soldier  in  a 
labyrinth  of  nonsense,  commonplaces,  and  meaningless  talk, 
in  which  he  manoeuvred,  in  military  language,  as  Prince 
Charles*  might  have  done  at  close  quarters  with  Napoleon. 
She  took  a  mischievous  amusement  in  reconnoitring  the  extent 
of  his  infatuation  by  the  number  of  foolish  speeches  extracted 
from  a  novic:c  whom  she  led  step  by  step  into  a  hopeless  maze, 
meaning  to  leave  him  there  in  confusion.  She  began  by 
laughing  at  him,  but  nevertheless  it  pleased  her  to  make  him 
forget  how  time  went. 

The  length  of  a  first  visit  is  frequently  a  compliment,  but 
Armand  was  innocent  of  any  such  intent.  The  famous  ex- 
plorer spent  an  hour  in  chat  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  said 
nothing  that  he  meant  to  say.  and  was  feeling  that  he  was  only 
an  instrument  on  whom  this  woman  played,  when  she  rose, 
sat  upright,  drew  the  scarf  from  her  hair,  and  wrapped  it  about 
her  throat,  leaned  her  elbow  on  the  cushions,  did  him  the 
honor  of  a  complete  cure,  and  rang  for  lights.  The  most 
graceful  movements  succeeded  to  complete  repose.  She 
turned  to  M.  de  Montriveau,  from  whom  she  had  just  ex- 
tracted a  confidence  which  seemed  to  interest  her  deeply,  and 
said — 

'•  You  wish  to  make  game  of  me  by  trying  to  make  me  be- 
lieve that  you  have  never  loved.  It  is  a  man's  great  pretension 
with  us.  And  we  always  believe  it  !  Out  of  pure  politeness. 
Do  we  not  know  what  to  expect  from  it  for  ourselves?  Where 
is  the  man  that  has  found  but  a  single  opportunity  of  losing 
his  heart?  But  you  love  to  deceive  us,  and  we  submit  to  be 
deceived,  poor  foolish  creatures  that  we  are;  for  your  hvpoc- 
*  Commander-in-chief  of  the  Austrian  armv  on  the  Kliiue. 


198  THE    THIRTEEN. 

risy  is,  after  all,  a  homage  paid  to  the  superiority  of  our  senti- 
ments, which  are  all  purity." 

The  last  words  were  spoken  with  a  disdainful  pride  that 
made  the  novice  in  love  feel  like  a  worthless  bale  flung  into 
the  deep,  while  the  duchess  was  an  angel  soaring  back  to  her 
particular  heaven. 

"Confound  it!  "  thought  Armand  de  Montriveau,  "how 
am  I  to  tell  this  wild  thing  that  I  love  her?  " 

He  had  told  her  already  a  score  of  times ;  or,  rather,  the 
duchess  had  a  score  of  times  read  his  secret  in  his  eyes ;  and 
the  passion  in  this  unmistakably  great  man  promised  her 
amusement  and  an  interest  in  her  empty  life.  So  she  pre- 
pared with  no  little  dexterity  to  raise  a  certain  number  of  re- 
doubts for  him  to  carry  by  storm  before  he  should  gain  an 
entrance  into  her  heart.  Montriveau  should  overleap  one 
difficulty  after  another;  he  should  be  a  plaything  for  her 
caprice,  just  as  an  insect  teased  by  children  is  made  to  jump 
from  one  finger  to  another,  and  in  spite  of  all  its  pains  is  kept 
in  the  same  place  by  its  mischievous  tormentor.  And  yet  it 
gave  the  duchess  inexpressible  happiness  to  see  that  this  strong 
man  had  told  her  the  truth.  Armand  had  never  loved,  as  he 
had  said.  He  was  about  to  go,  in  a  bad  humor  with  himself, 
and  still  more  out  of  humor  with  her;  but  it  delighted  her  to 
see  a  sullenness  that  she  could  conjure  away  with  a  word,  a 
glance,  or  a  gesture. 

"  Will  you  come  to-morrow  evening  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I  am 
going  to  a  ball,  but  I  shall  stay  at  home  for  you  until  ten 
o'clock." 

Montriveau  spent  most  of  the  next  day  in  smoking  an  in- 
determinate quantity  of  cigars  in  his  study  window,  and  so  he 
got  through  the  hours  till  he  could  dress  and  go  to  the  Hotel 
de  Langeais.  To  any  one  who  had  known  the  magnificent 
worth  of  the  man,  it  would  have  been  grievous  to  see  him  grown 
so  small,  so  distrustful  of  himself;  the  mind  that  might  have 


THE    THIRTEEN.  199 

shed  light  over  undiscovered  worlds  shrunk  to  the  proportions 
of  a  she-coxcomb's  boudoir.  Even  he  himself  felt  that  he  had 
fallen  so  low  already  in  his  happiness  that  to  save  his  life  he 
could  not  have  told  his  love  to  one  of  his  closest  friends.  Is 
there  not  always  a  trace  of  shame  in  the  lover's  bashfulness, 
and  perhaps  in  woman  a  certain  exultation  over  diminished 
masculine  stature?  Indeed,  but  for  a  host  of  motives  of  this 
kind,  how  explain  why  women  are  nearly  always  the  first  to 
betray  the  secret  ? — a  secret  of  which,  perhaps,  they  soon 
weary. 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse  cannot  yet  see  visitors,  monsieur," 
said  the  man  ;  "  she  is  dressing,  she  begs  you  to  wait  for  her 
here." 

Armand  walked  up  and  down  the  drawing-room,  studying 
her  taste  in  the  least  details.  He  admired  Mme.  de  Langeais 
herself  in  the  objects  of  her  choosing ;  they  revealed  her  life 
before  he  could  grasp  her  personality  and  ideas.  About  an 
hour  later  the  duchess  came  noiselessly  out  of  her  chamber. 
Montriveau  turned,  saw  her  flit  like  a  shadow  across  the  room, 
and  trembled.  She  came  up  to  him,  not  with  a  bourgeoise's 
inquiry:  "  How  do  I  look?"  She  was  sure  of  herself;  her 
steady  eyes  said  plainly,  "  I  am  adorned  to  please  you." 

No  one  surely,  save  the  old  fairy  godmother  of  some 
princess  in  disguise,  could  have  wound  a  cloud  of  gauze  about 
the  dainty  throat,  so  that  the  dazzling  satin  skin  beneath 
should  gleam  through  the  gleaming  folds.  The  duchess  was 
dazzling.  The  pale  blue  color  of  her  gown,  repeated  in  the 
flowers  in  her  hair,  appeared  by  the  richness  of  its  hue  to  lend 
substance  to  a  fragile  form  grown  too  wholly  ethereal  ,  for  as 
she  glided  toward  Armand,  the  loose  ends  of  her  scarf  floated 
about  her,  putting  that  valiant  warrior  in  mind  of  the  bright, 
blue  damosel  flies*  that  hover  now  over  water,  now  over  the 
flowers  with  which  they  seem  to  mingle  and  blend. 

"  I  have  kept  you  waiting,"  she  said,  with  the  tone  that  a 

*  The  agnon,  a  small  blue  drngon-fiy. 


200  THE    THIRTEEN. 

woman  can  always  bring  into  her  voice  for  the  man  whom  she 
wishes  to  please. 

"  I  would  wait  patiently  through  an  eternity,"  said  he,  "  if 
I  were  sure  of  finding  a  divinity  so  fair ;  but  it  is  no  compli- 
ment to  speak  of  your  beauty  to  you ;  nothing  save  worship 
could  touch  you.  Suffer  me  only  to  kiss  your  scarf." 

"Oh,  fie!"  she  said,  with  a  commanding  gesture,  "I 
esteem  you  enough  to  give  you  my  hand." 

She  held  it  out  for  his  kiss.  A  woman's  hand,  still  moist 
from  the  scented  bath,  has  a  soft  freshness,  a  velvet  smooth- 
ness that  sends  a  tingling  thrill  from  the  lips  to  the  soul. 
And  if  a  man  is  attracted  to  a  woman,  and  his  senses  are  as 
quick  to  feel  pleasure  as  his  heart  is  full  of  love,  such  a  kiss, 
though  chaste  in  appearance,  may  conjure  up  a  terrific  storm. 

"Will  you  always  give  it  me  thus?"  the  general  asked 
humbly,  when  he  had  pressed  that  dangerous  hand  respectfully 
to  his  lips. 

"Yes,  but  there  we  must  stop,"  she  said,  smiling.  She  sat 
down,  and  seemed  very  slow  over  putting  on  her  gloves,  try- 
ing to  slip  the  unstretched  kid  over  all  her  fingers  at  once, 
while  she  watched  M.  de  Montriveau ;  and  he  was  lost  in 
admiration  of  the  duchess  and  those  repeated  graceful  move- 
ments of  hers. 

"Ah!  you  were  punctual,"  she  said;  "that  is  right.  I 
like  punctuality.  It  is  the  courtesy  of  kings,  his  majesty  says  ; 
but  to  my  thinking,  from  you  men  it  is  the  most  respectful 
flattery  of  all.  Now,  is  it  not?  Just  tell  me." 

Again  she  gave  him  a  side-glance  to  express  her  insidious 
friendship,  for  he  was  dumb  with  happiness — sheer  happiness 
through  such  nothings  as  these  !  Oh,  the  duchess  understood 
son  metier  de  femmc — the  art  and  mystery  of  being  a  woman — 
most  marvelously  well;  she  knew,  to  admiration,  how  to  raise 
a  man  in  his  own  esteem  as  he  humbled  himself  to  her;  how 
to  reward  every  step  of  the  descent  to  sentimental  folly  with 
hollow  flatteries. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  *)1 

"  You  will  never  foiget  to  come  at  nine  o'clock." 

"  No ;  but  are  you  going  to  a  ball  every  night  ?  " 

"  Do  I  know?"  she  answered,  with  a  little  childlike  shrug 
of  the  shoulders ;  the  gesture  was  meant  to  say  that  she  was 
nothing  if  not  capricious,  and  that  a  lover  must  take  her  as 
she  was.  "Beside,"  she  added,  "what  is  that  to  you?  You 
shall  be  my  escort." 

"That  would  be  difficult  to-night,"  he  objected;  "I  am 
not  properly  dressed." 

"It  seems  to  me,"  she  returned  loftily,  "that  if  any  one 
has  a  right  to  complain  of  your  costume,  it  is  I.  Know, 
therefore,  monsieur  le  voyageur*  that  if  I  accept  a  man's  arm, 
he  is  forthwith  above  the  laws  of  fashion,  nobody  would  ven- 
ture to  criticise  him.  You  do  not  know  the  world,  I  see;  I 
like  you  the  better  for  it." 

And  even  us  she  spoke  she  swept  him  into  the  pettiness  of 
that  world  by  the  attempt  to  initiate  him  into  the  vanities  of  a 
woman  of  fashion. 

"  If  she  chooses  to  do  a  foolish  thing  for  me,  I  should  be  a 
simpleton  to  prevent  her,"  said  Armand  to  himself.  "She 
has  a  liking  for  me  beyond  a  doubt ;  and,  as  for  the  world,  she 
cannot  despise  it  more  than  I  do.  So,  now  for  the  ball  if  she 
likes." 

The  duchess  probably  thought  that  if  the  general  came  with 
her  and  appeared  in  a  ballroom  in  boots  and  a  black  tie,  no- 
body would  hesitate  to  believe  that  he  was  violently  in  love 
with  her.  And  the  general  was  well  pleased  that  the  queen  of 
fashion  should  think  of  compromising  herself  for  him;  hope 
gave  him  wit.  He  had  gained  confidence,  he  brought  out  his 
thoughts  and  views ;  he  felt  nothing  of  the  restraint  that 
weighed  on  his  spirits  yesterday.  His  talk  was  interesting 
and  animated,  and  full  of  those  first  confidences  so  sweet  to 
make  and  to  receive. 

Was  Mme.  de  Langeais  really  carried  away  by  his  talk,  or 

*  Mister  Traveler. 


202  THE    THIRTEEN. 

had  she  devised  this  charming  piece  of  coquetry?  At  any 
rate,  she  looked  up  mischievously  as  the  clock  struck  twelve. 

"Ah  !  you  have  made  me  too  late  for  the  ball  !  "  she  ex- 
claimed, surprised  and  vexed  that  she  had  forgotten  how  time 
was  going. 

The  next  moment  she  approved  the  exchange  of  pleasures 
with  a  smile  that  made  Armand's  heart  give  a  sudden  leap. 

"I  certainly  promised  Madame  de  Beauseant,"  she  added. 
"  They  are  all  expecting  me." 

"Very  well— go." 

"  No — go  on.  I  will  stay.  Your  Eastern  adventures  fasci- 
nate me.  Tell  me  the  whole  story  of  your  life.  I  love  to 
share  in  a  brave  man's  hardships,  and  I  feel  them  all,  indeed 
I  do!" 

She  was  playing  with  her  scarf,  twisting  it  and  pulling  it  to 
pieces,  with  jerky,  impatient  movements  that  seemed  to  tell 
of  inward  dissatisfaction  and  deep  reflection. 

"Women  are  fit  for  nothing,"  she  went  on.  "Ah  !  we  are 
contemptible,  selfish,  frivolous  creatures.  We  can  bore  our- 
selves with  amusements,  and  that  is  all  we  can  do.  Not  one 
of  us  that  understands  that  she  has  a  part  to  play  in  life.  In 
old  days  in  France,  women  were  beneficent  lights  ;  they  lived 
to  comfort  those  that  mourned,  to  encourage  high  virtues,  to 
reward  artists  and  stir  new  life  with  noble  thoughts.  If  the 
world  has  grown  so  petty,  ours  is  the  fault.  You  make  me 
loathe  the  ball  and  this  world  in  which  I  live.  No,  I  am  not 
giving  up  much  for  you." 

She  had  plucked  her  scarf  to  pieces,  as  a  child  plays  with  a 
flower,  pulling  away  all  the  petals  one  by  one  ;  and  now  she 
crushed  it  into  a  ball,  and  flung  it  away.  She  could  show  her 
swan's  neck. 

She  rang  the  bell.  "  I  shall  not  go  out  to-night,"  she  told 
the  footman.  Her  long,  blue  eyes  turned  timidly  to  Armand; 
and  by  the  look  of  misgiving  in  them,  he  knew  that  he  was 
meant  to  take  the  order  for  a  confession,  for  a  first  and  great 


THE    THIRTEEN.  203 

favor.  There  was  a  pause,  filled  with  many  thoughts,  before 
she  spoke  with  that  tenderness  which  is  often  in  women's 
voices,  and  not  so  often  in  their  hearts.  "You  have  had  a 
hard  life,"  she  said. 

"No,"  returned  Armand.  "  Until  today  I  did  not  know 
what  happiness  was." 

"Then  you  know  it  now?"  she  asked,  looking  at  him  with 
a  demure,  keen  glance. 

"  What  is  happiness  for  me  henceforth  but  this — to  see  you, 
to  hear  you?  Until  now  I  have  only  known  privation  ;  now 
I  know  that  I  can  be  unhappy — 

"  That  will  do,  that  will  do,"  she  said.  "  You  must  go  ; 
it  is  past  midnight.  Let  us  regard  appearances.  People  must 
not  talk  about  us.  I  do  not  know  quite  what  I  shall  say ;  but 
the  headache  is  a  good-natured  friend,  and  tells  no  tales." 

"  Is  there  to  be  a  ball  to-morrow  night  ?  " 

"  You  would  grow  accustomed  to  the  life,  I  think.  Very 
well.  Yes,  we  will  go  to  another  ball  to-morrow  night." 

There  was  not  a  happier  man  in  the  world  than  Armand 
when  he  went  out  from  her.  Every  evening  he  came  to  Mme. 
de  Langeais*  at  the  hour  kept  for  him  by  a  tacit  understanding. 

It  would  be  tedious,  and,  for  the  many  young  men  who 
carry  a  redundance  of  such  sweet  memories  in  their  hearts,  it 
were  superfluous  to  follow  the  story  step  by  step — the  progress 
of  a  romance  growing  in  those  hours  spent  together,  a  romance 
controlled  entirely  by  a  woman's  will.  If  sentiment  went  too 
fast,  she  would  raise  a  quarrel  over  a  word,  or  when  words 
flagged  behind  her  thoughts,  she  appealed  to  the  feelings. 
Perhaps  the  only  way  of  following  such  Penelope's  progress  is 
by  marking  its  outward  and  visible  signs. 

As,  for  instance,  within  a  few  days  of  their  first  meeting, 
the  assiduous  general  had  won  and  kept  the  right  to  kiss  his 
lady's  insatiable  hands.  Wherever  Mme.  de  Langeais  went, 
M.  de  Montriveau  was  certain  to  be  seen,  till  people  jokingly 
called  him  "  her  grace's  orderly."  And  already  he  had  made 


204  THE    THIRTEEN. 

enemies ;  others  were  jealous,  and  envied  him  his  position. 
Mme.  de  Langeais  had  attained  her  end.  The  Marquis  de 
Montriveau  was  among  her  numerous  train  of  adorers,  and  a 
means  of  humiliating  those  who  boasted  of  their  progress  in 
her  good  graces,  for  she  publicly  gave  him  preference  over 
them  all. 

"  Decidedly,  Monsieur  de  Montriveau  is  the  man  for  whom 
the  duchess  shows  a  preference,"  pronounced  Madame  de 
Serizy. 

And  who  in  Paris  does  not  know  what  it  means  when  a 
woman  "shows  a  preference?"  All  went  on  therefore  ac- 
cording to  prescribed  rule.  The  anecdotes  which  people  were 
pleased  to  circulate  concerning  the  general  put  that  warrior  in 
so  formidable  a  light,  that  the  more  adroit  quietly  dropped 
their  pretensions  to  the  duchess,  and  remained  in  her  train 
merely  to  turn  the  position  to  account,  and  to  use  her  name 
and  personality  to  make  better  terms  for  themselves  with  cer- 
tain stars  of  the  second  magnitude.  And  those  lesser  powers 
were  delighted  to  take  a  lover  away  from  Mme.  de  Langeais. 
The  duchess  was  keen-sighted  enough  to  see  these  desertions 
and  treaties  with  the  enemy ;  and  her  pride  would  not  suffer 
her  to  be  the  dupe  of  them.  As  M.  de  Talleyrand,  one  of  her 
great  admirers,  said,  she  knew  how  to  take  a  second  edition 
of  revenge,  laying  the  two-edged  blade  of  a  sarcasm  between 
the  pairs  in  these  "morganatic  "*  unions.  Her  mocking  dis- 
dain contributed  not  a  little  to  increase  her  reputation  as  an 
extremely  clever  woman  and  a  person  to  be  feared.  Her 
character  for  virtue  was  consolidated  while  she  amused  herself 
with  other  people's  secrets,  and  kept  her  own  to  herself.  Yet, 
after  two  months  of  assiduities,  she  saw  with  a  vague  dread  in 
the  depths  of  her  soul  that  M.  de  Montriveau  understood 
nothing  of  the  subtleties  of  flirtation  after  the  manner  of  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain  ;  he  was  taking  a  Parisienne's  co- 
quetry in  earnest. 

*  Left-handed. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  205 

"You  will  not  tame  him,  dear  duchess,"  the  old  Vidamc 
de  Pamiers  had  said.  "  'Tis  a  first  cousin  to  the  eagle;  he 
will  carry  you  off  to  his  eyrie  if  you  do  not  take  care." 

Then  Mme.  de  Langeais  felt  afraid.  The  shrewd  old  noble's 
words  sounded  like  a  prophecy.  The  next  day  she  tried  to 
turn  love  to  hate.  She  was  harsh,  exacting,  irritable,  unbear- 
able ;  Montriveau  disarmed  her  with  angelic  sweetness.  She 
so  little  knew  the  great  generosity  of  a  large  nature,  that  the 
kindly  jests  with  which  her  first  complaints  were  met  went  to 
her  heart.  She  sought  a  quarrel,  and  found  proofs  of  affec- 
tion. She  persisted. 

"When  a  man  idolizes  you,  how  can  he  have  vexed  you?" 
asked  Armand. 

"You  do  not  vex  me,"  she  answered,  suddenly  growing 
gentle  and  submissive.  "  But  why  do  you  wish  to  compro- 
mise me?  For  me  you  ought  to  be  nothing  but  a.  friend.  Do 
you  not  know  it  ?  I  wish  I  could  see  that  you  had  the  in- 
stincts, the  delicacy  of  real  friendship,  so  that  I  might  lose 
neither  your  respect  nor  the  pleasure  that  your  presence  gives 
me." 

"Nothing  but  your  friend  !  "  he  cried  out.  The  terrible 
word  sent  an  electric  shock  through  his  brain.  "On  the 
faith  of  these  happy  hours  that  you  grant  me,  I  sleep  and 
wake  in  your  heart.  And  now  to-day,  for  no  reason,  you  are 
pleased  to  destroy  all  the  secret  hopes  by  which  I  live.  You 
have  required  promises  of  such  constancy  in  me,  you  have 
said  so  much  of  your  horror  of  women  made  up  of  nothing 
but  caprice ;  and  now  do  you  wish  me  to  understand  that, 
like  other  women  here  in  Pans,  you  have  passions,  and  know 
nothing  of  love?  If  so,  why  did  you  ask  my  life  of  me? 
why  did  you  accept  it?" 

"  I  was  wrong,  my  friend.  Oh,  it  is  wrong  of  a  woman  to 
yield  to  such  intoxication  when  she  must  not  and  cannot  make 
any  return." 


206  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  I  understand.  You  have  been  merely  coquetting  with  me, 
and " 

"Coquetting?"  she  repeated.  "I  detest  coquetry.  A 
coquette,  Armand,  makes  promises  to  many,  and  gives  her- 
self to  none ;  and  a  woman  who  keeps  such  promises  is  a 
libertine.  This  much  I  believed  I  had  grasped  of  our  code. 
But  to  be  melancholy  with  humorists,  gay  with  the  frivolous, 
and  politic  with  ambitious  souls  ;  to  listen  to  a  babbler  with 
every  appearance  of  admiration,  to  talk  of  war  with  a  soldier, 
wax  enthusiastic  with  philanthropists  over  the  good  of  the 
nation,  and  to  give  to  each  one  his  little  dole  of  flattery — it 
seems  to  me  that  this  is  as  much  a  matter  of  necessity  as  dress, 
diamonds,  and  gloves,  or  flowers  in  one's  hair.  Such  talk  is 
the  moral  counterpart  of  the  toilet.  You  take  it  up  and  lay  it 
aside  with  the  plumed  head-dress.  Do  you  call  this  coquetry  ? 
Why,  I  have  never  treated  you  as  I  treat  every  one  else. 
With  you,  my  friend,  I  am  sincere.  Have  I  not  always  shared 
your  views,  and  when  you  convinced  me  after  a  discussion 
was  I  not  always  perfectly  glad  ?  In  short,  I  love  you,  but 
only  as  a  devout  and  pure  woman  may  love.  I  have  thought 
it  over.  I  am  a  married  woman,  Armand.  My  way  of  life 
with  Monsieur  de  Langeais  gives  me  liberty  to  bestow  my 
heart;  but  law  and  custom  leave  me  no  right  to  dispose  of 
my  person.  If  a  woman  loses  her  honor,  she  is  an  outcast  in 
any  rank  of  life  ?  and  I  have  yet  to  meet  with  a  single  exam- 
ple of  a  man  that  realizes  all  that  our  sacrifices  demand  of  him 
in  such  a  case.  Quite  otherwise.  Any  one  can  foresee  the 
rupture  between  Madame  de  Beauseant  and  Monsieur  d'Ajuda 
(for  he  is  going  to  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Rochefide,  it  seems) ; 
that  affair  made  it  clear  to  my  mind  that  these  very  sacrifices 
on  the  woman's  part  are  almost  always  the  cause  of  the  man's 
desertion.  If  you  had  loved  me  sincerely,  you  would  have 
kept  away  for  a  time.  Now,  I  will  lay  aside  all  vanity  for 
you;  is  not  that  something?  What  will  not  people  say  of  a 
woman  to  whom  no  man  attaches  himself?  Oh,  she  is  heart- 


THE    THIRTEEN.  207 

less,  brainless,  soulless  ;  and  what  is  more,  devoid  of  charm  ! 
Coquettes  will  not  spare  me.  They  will  rob  me  of  the  very 
qualities  that  mortify  them.  So  long  as  my  reputation  is  safe, 
what  do  I  care  if  my  rivals  deny  my  merits?  They  certainly 
will  not  inherit  them.  Come,  my  friend  ;  give  up  something 
for  her  who  sacrifices  so  much  for  you.  Do  not  come  quite  so 
often  ;  I  shall  love  you  none  the  less." 

"Ah!"  said  Armand,  with  the  profound  irony  of  a 
wounded  heart  in  his  words  and  tone.  "  Love,  so  the  scrib- 
blers say,  only  feeds  on  illusions.  Nothing  could  be  truer,  I 
see ;  I  am  expected  to  imagine  that  I  am  loved.  But,  there  ! 
— there  are  some  thoughts  like  wounds,  from  which  there  is 
no  recovery.  My  belief  in  you  was  one  of  the  last  left  to 
me,  and  now  I  see  that  there  is  nothing  left  to  believe  in  this 
earth." 

She  began  to  smile. 

"Yes,"  Montriveau  went  on  in  an  unsteady  voice,  "this 
Catholic  faith  to  which  you  wish  to  convert  me  is  a  lie  that 
men  make  for  themselves;  hope  is  a  lie  at  the  expense  of  the 
future ;  pride,  a  lie  between  us  and  our  fellows  ;  and  pity, 
and  prudence,  and  terror  are  cunning  lies.  And  now  my  hap- 
piness is  to  be  one  more,  lying  delusion  ;  I  am  expected  to 
delude  myself,  to  be  willing  to  give  gold  coin  for  silver  to  the 
end.  If  you  can  so  easily  dispense  with  my  visits;  if  you 
can  confess  me  neither  as  your  friend  nor  your  lover,  you  do 
not  care  for  me  !  And  I,  poor  fool  that  I  am,  tell  myself  this, 
and  know  it,  and  love  you  !  " 

"  But  dear  me,  poor  Armand.  you  are  flying  into  a  pas- 
sion !  " 

"  I  flying  into  a  passion  ?  " 

"  Yes.  You  think  that  the  whole  thing  is  ended  because  I 
ask  you  to  be  careful." 

In  her  heart  of  hearts  she  was  delighted  with  the  anger  that 
leaped  out  in  her  lover's  eyes.  Even  as  she  tortured  him, 
she  was  criticising  him,  watching  every  slightest  change  that 


208  THE    THIRTEEN. 

passed  over  his  face.  If  the  general  had  been  so  unluckily 
inspired  as  to  show  himself  generous  without  discussion  (as 
happens  occasionally  with  some  artless  souls),  he  would  have 
been  a  banished  man  for  ever,  accused  and  convicted  of  not 
knowing  how  to  love.  Most  women  are  not  displeased  to 
have  their  code  of  right  and  wrong  broken  through.  Do  they 
not  flatter  themselves  that  they  never  yield  except  to  force  ? 
But  Armand  was  not  learned  enough  in  this  kind  of  lore  to 
see  the  limed  snare  so  ingeniously  spread  for  him  by  the 
knowing  duchess.  So  much  of  the  child  was  there  in  the 
strong  man  in  love. 

"If  all  you  want  is  to  preserve  appearances,"  he  began  in 
his  simplicity,  "I  am  willing  to " 

"Simply  to  preserve  appearances!"  the  lady  broke  in; 
"why,  what  idea  can  you  have  of  me?  Have  I  given  you 
the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that  I  can  ever  be  yours?" 

"Why,  what  else  are  we  talking  about?"  demanded  Mon- 
triveau. 

"  Monsieur,  you  frighten  me !  No.  pardon  me.  Thank 
you,"  she  added,  coldly;  "thank  you,  Armand.  You  have 
given  me  timely  warning  of  imprudence ;  committed  quite 
unconsciously,  believe  it,  my  friend.  You  know  how  to  en- 
dure, you  say.  I  also  know  how  to  endure.  We  will  not  see 
each  other  for  a  time;  and  then,  when  both  of 'us  have  con- 
trived to  recover  calmness  to  some  extent,  we  will  think  about 
arrangements  for  a  happiness  sanctioned  by  the  world.  I  am 
young,  Armand ;  a  man  with  no  delicacy  might  tempt  a 
woman  of  four-and-twenty  to  do  many  foolish,  wild  things 
for  his  sake.  But  you  !  You  will  be  my  friend,  promise  me 
that  you  will?" 

"The  woman  of  four-and-twenty,"  returned  he,  "knows 
what  she  is  about." 

He  sat  down  on  the  divan  in  the  boudoir,  and  leaned  his 
head  on  his  hands. 

"Do  you  love  me,  madame?"  he  asked  at  length,  raising 


THE    THIRTEEN.  209 

his  head,  and  turning  a  face  full  of  resolution  upon  her. 
"  Say  it  straight  out :  Yes  or  No  !  " 

His  direct  question  dismayed  the  duchess  more  than  a 
threat  of  suicide  could  have  done  ;  indeed,  the  woman  of  the 
century  is  not  to  be  frightened  by  that  stale  stratagem,  the 
sword  has  ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  masculine  costume.  But 
in  the  effect  of  eyelids  and  lashes,  in  the  contraction  of  the 
gaze,  in  the  twitching  of  the  lips,  is  there  not  some  influence 
that  communicates  the  terror  which  they  express  with  such 
vivid  magnetic  power? 

"Ah,  if  I  jvere  free,  if " 

"Oil!  is  it  only  your  husband  that  stands  in  the  way?" 
the  general  exclaimed  joyfully,  as  he  strode  to  and  fro  in  the 
boudoir.  "  Dear  Antoinette,  I  wield  a  more  absolute  power 
than  the  autocrat  of  all  the  Russias.  I  have  a  compact  with 
Fate ;  I  can  advance  or  retard  destiny,  so  far  as  men  are  con- 
cerned, at  my  fancy,  as  you  alter  the  hands  of  a  watch.  If 
you  can  direct  the  course  of  fate  in  our  political  machinery, 
it  simply  means  (does  it  not?)  that  you  understand  the  ins 
and  outs  of  it.  You  shall  be  free  before  very  long,  and  then 
you  must  remember  your  promise." 

"Armand  !  "  she  cried.  "What  do  you  mean?  Great 
heavens  !  Can  you  imagine  that  I  am  to  be  the  prize  of  a 
crime?  Do  you  want  to  kill  me?  Why!  you  cannot  have 
any  religion  in  you  !  For  my  own  part,  I  fear  God.  Mon- 
sieur de  Langeais  may  have  given  me  reason  to  hate  him,  but 
I  wish  him  no  manner  of  harm." 

M.  de  Montriveau  beat  a  tattoo  on  the  marble  mantel,  and 
only  looked  composedly  at  the  lady. 

"Dear,"  continued  she,  "respect  him.  He  does  not  love 
me,  he  is  not  kind  to  me,  but  I  have  duties  to  perform  with 
regard  to  him.  What  would  I  not  do  to  avert  the  calamities 
with  which  you  threaten  him?  Listen,"  she  continued  after 
a  pause,  "  I  will  not  say  another  word  about  separation  ;  you 
shall  come  here  as  in  the  past,  and  T  will  still  give  you  my  fore- 
14 


210  THE    THIRTEEN. 

head  to  kiss.  If  I  refused  once  or  twice,  it  was  pure  coquetry, 
indeed  it  was.  But  let  us  understand  each  other,"  she  added 
as  he  came  closer.  "  You  will  permit  me  to  add  to  the  number 
of  my  satellites,  to  receive  even  more  visitors  in  the  morning 
than  heretofore  ;  I  mean  to  be  twice  as  frivolous ;  I  mean  to 
use  you  to  all  appearance  very  badly ;  to  feign  a  rupture  ;  you 
must  come  not  quite  so  often,  and  then,  afterward ' 

While  she  spoke  she  had  allowed  him  to  put  an  arm  about 
her  waist,  Montriveau  was  holding  her  tightly  to  him,  and  she 
seemed  to  feel  the  exceeding  pleasure  that  women  usually  feel 
in  that  close  contact,  an  earnest  of  the  bliss  of  a  closer  union. 
And  then,  doubtless,  she  meant  to  elicit  some  confidence,  for 
she  raised  herself  on  tiptoe,  and  laid  her  forehead  against 
Armand's  burning  lips. 

"And  then,"  Montriveau  finished  her  sentence  for  her, 
"  you  shall  not  speak  to  me  of  your  husband.  You  ought  not 
to  think  of  him  again."  - 

Mme.  de  Langeais  was  silent  awhile. 

"At  least,"  she  said,  after  a  significant  pause,  '•'  at  least  you 
will  do  all  that  I  wish  without  grumbling,  you  will  not  be 
naughty;  tell  me  so,  my  friend?  You  wanted  to  frighten  me, 
did  you  not?  Come  now,  confess  it.  You  are  too  good 
ever  to  think  of  crimes.  But  is  it  possible  that  you  can 
have  secrets  that  I  do  not  know  ?  How  can  you  control 
Fate?" 

"  Now,  when  you  confirm  the  gift  of  the  heart  that  you 
have  already  given  me,  I  am  far  too  happy  to  know  exactly 
how  to  answer  you.  I  can  trust  you,  Antoinette ;  I  shall  have 
no  suspicion,  no  unfounded  jealousy  of  you.  But  if  accident 
should  set  you  free,  we  shall  be  one " 

"Accident,  Artnand  ?  "  (with  that  little  dainty  turn  of  the 
head  that  seems  to  say  so  many  things,  a  gesture  that  such 
women  as  the  duchess  can  use  on  light  occasions,  as  a  great 
singer  can  act  with  her  voice).  "  Pure  accident  !  "  she  re- 
peated. "  Mind  that.  If  anything  should  happen  to  Monsieur 


THE    THIRTEEN  211 

de  Langeais  by  your  fault,  I  should  never  be  yours,"  she  added 
as  a  parting  shot. 

And  so  they  parted,  mutually  content.  The  duchess  had 
made  a  pact  that  left  her  free  to  prove  to  the  world  by  words 
and  deeds  that  M.  de  Montriveau  was  no  lover  of  hers.  And 
as  for  him,  the  wily  duchess  vowed  to  tire  him  out.  He  should 
have  nothing  of  her  beyond  the  little  concessions  snatched  in 
the  course  of  contests  that  she  could  incite  or  stop  at  her 
pleasure.  She  had  so  pretty  an  art  of  revoking  the  grant  of 
yesterday,  she  was  so  much  in  earnest  in  her  purpose  to  re- 
main technically  virtuous,  that  she  felt  that  there  was  not  the 
slightest  danger  for  her  in  preliminaries  fraught  with  peril  for 
a  woman  less  sure  of  her  self-command.  After  all,  the  duche>s 
was  practically  separated  from  her  husband  ,  a  marriage  long 
since  annulled  was  no  great  sacrifice  to  make  to  her  love. 

Montriveau  on  his  side  was  quite  happy  to  win  the  vaguest 
promise,  glad  once  for  all  to  sweep  aside,  with  all  scruples  of 
conjugal  fidelity,  her  stock  of  excuses  for  refusing  herself  to 
his  love.  He  had  gained  ground  a  little,  and  congratulated 
himself.  And  so  for  a  time  he  took  unfair  advantage  of  the 
rights  so  hardily  won.  More  a  boy  than  he  had  ever  been  in 
his  life,  he  gave  himself  up  to  all  the  childishness  that  makes 
first  love,  the  flower  of  life.  He  was  a  child  again  as  he 
poured  out  all  his  soul,  all  the  thwarted  forces  that  passion 
had  given  him,  upon  her  hands,  upon  the  dazzling  forehead 
that  looked  so  pure  to  his  eyes ;  upon  her  fair  hair ;  on  the 
tufted  curls  where  his  lips  were  pressed.  And  the  duchess,  on 
whom  his  love  was  poured  like  a  flood,  was  vanquished  by 
the  magnetic  influence  of  her  lover's  warmth  ;  she  hesitated 
to  begin  the  quarrel  that  must  part  them  for  ever.  She  was 
more  a  woman  than  she  thought,  this  slight  creature,  in  her 
effort  to  reconcile  the  demands  of  religion  with  the  ever-new 
sensations  of  vanity,  the  semblance  of  pleasure  which  turns  a 
Parisienne's  head.  Every  Sunday  she  went  to  mass  ;  she 
never  missed  a  service  ;  then,  when  evening  came,  she  was 


212  THE    THIRTEEN. 

steeped  in  the  intoxicating  bliss  of  repressed  desire.  Armand 
and  Mme.  de  Langeais,  like  Hindoo  fakirs,  found  the  reward 
of  their  continence  in  the  temptations  to  which  it  gave  rise. 
Possibly,  the  duchess  had  ended  by  resolving  love  into  frater- 
nal caresses,  harmless  enough,  as  it  might  have  seemed  to  the 
rest  of  the  world,  while  they  borrowed  extremes  of  degrada- 
tion from  the  license  of  her  thoughts.  How  else  explain 
the  incomprehensible  mystery  of  her  continual  fluctuations? 
Every  morning  she  proposed  to  herself  to  shut  her  door  on 
the  Marquis  de  Montriveau ;  every  evening,  at  the  appointed 
hour,  she  fell  under  the  charm  of  his  presence.  There  was  a 
languid  defense  ;  then  she  grew  less  unkind.  Her  words  were 
sweet  and  soothing.  They  were  lovers — lovers  only  could 
have  been  thus.  For  him  the  duchess  would  display  her  most 
sparkling  wit,  her  most  captivating  wiles ;  and  when  at  last 
she  had  wrought  upon  his  senses  and  his  soul,  she  might  sub- 
mit herself  passively  to  his  fierce  caresses,  but  she  had  her 
ne  plus  ultra  of  passion ;  and  when  once  it  was  reached,  she 
grew  angry  if  he  lost  the  mastery  of  himself  and  made  as 
though  he  would  pass  beyond.  No  woman  on  earth  can 
brave  the  consequences  of  refusal  without  some  motive;  noth- 
ing is  more  natural  than  to  yield  to  love ;  wherefore  Mme.  de 
Langeais  promptly  raised  a  second  line  of  fortification,  a 
stronghold  less  easy  to  carry  than  the  first.  She  evoked  the 
terrors  of  religion.  Never  did  father  of  the  church,  however 
eloquent,  plead  the  cause  of  God  better  than  the  duchess. 
Never  was  the  wrath  of  the  Most  High  better  proclaimed  than 
by  her  voice.  She  used  no  preacher's  commonplaces,  no 
rhetorical  amplifications.  No,  She  had  a  "  pulpit-  tremor  " 
of  her  own.  To  Armand's  most  passionate  entreaty,  she  re- 
plied with  a  tearful  gaze,  and  a  gesture  in  which  a  terrible 
plenitude  of  emotion  found  expression.  She  stopped  his 
mouth  with  an  appeal  for  mercy.  She  would  not  hear 
another  word ;  if  she  did,  she  must  succumb ;  and  better 
death  than  criminal  happiness. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  313 

"  Is  it  nothing  to  disobey  God  ?  "  she  asked  him,  recover- 
ing a  voice  grown  faint  in  the  crises  of  inward  struggles, 
through  which  the  fair  actress  appeared  to  find  it  hard  to 
preserve  her  self-control.  "  I  would  sacrifice  society,  I  would 
give  up  the  whole  world  for  you,  gladly ;  but  it  is  very  selfish 
of  you  to  ask  my  whole  after-life  of  me  for  a  moment  of  pleas- 
ure. Come,  now!  are  you  not  happy?"  she  added,  holding 
out  her  hand  ;  and  certainly  in  her  careless  toilette  the  sight 
of  her  afforded  consolations  to  her  lover,  who  made  the  most 
of  them. 

Sometimes  from  policy,  to  keep  her  hold  on  a  man  whose 
ardent  passion  gave  her  emotions  unknown  before,  sometimes 
in  weakness,  she  suffered  him  to  snatch  a  swift  kiss  ;  and  im- 
mediately, in  feigned  terror,  she  flushed  red  and  exiled 
Armand  from  the  lounge  so  soon  as  it  became  dangerous 
ground. 

"  Your  joys  are  sins  for  me  to  expiate,  Armand;  they  are 
paid  for  by  penitence  and  remorse,"  she  cried. 

And  Montriveau,  now  at  two  chairs'  distance  from  that  aris- 
tocratic petticoat,  betook  himself  to  blasphemy  and  railed 
against  Providence.  The  duchess  grew  angry  at  such  times. 

"My  friend,"  she  would  say  drily,  "I  do  not  understand 
why  you  decline  to  believe  in  God,  for  it  is  impossible  to  be- 
lieve in  man.  Hush,  do  not  talk  like  that.  You  have  too 
great  a  nature  to  take  up  their  Liberal  nonsense  with  its  pre- 
tension to  abolish  God." 

Theological  and  political  disputes  acted  like  a  cold  douche 
on  Montriveau  ;  he  calmed  down  ;  he  could  not  return  to 
love  when  the  duchess  stirred  up  his  wrath  by  suddenly  setting 
him  down  a  thousand  miles  away  from  the  boudoir,  discussing 
theories  of  absolute  monarchy,  which  she  defended  to  admi- 
ration. Few  women  venture  to  be  democrats;  the  attitude  of 
democratic  champion  is  scarcely  compatible  with  tyrannous 
feminine  sway.  But  often,  on  the  other  hand,  the  general 
shook  out  his  mane,  dropped  politics  with  a  leonine  growling 


214  THE    THIRTEEN. 

and  lashing  of  the  flanks,  and  sprang  upon  his  prey ;  he  was 
no  longer  capable  of  carrying  a  heart  and  brain  at  such  vari- 
ance for  very  far;  he  came  back,  terrible  with  love,  to  his 
mistress.  And  she,  if  she  felt  the  prick  of  fancy  stimulated 
to  a  dangerous  point,  knew  that  it  was  time  to  leave  her  bou- 
doir; she  came  out  of  the  atmosphere  surcharged  with  desires 
that  she  drew  in  with  her  breath,  sat  down  to  the  piano,  and 
sang  the  most  exquisite  songs  of  modern  music,  and  so  baffled 
the  physical  attraction  which  at  times  showed  her  no  mercy, 
though  she  was  strong  enough  to  fight  it  down. 

At  such  times  she  was  something  sublime  in  Armand's  eyes; 
she  was  not  acting,  she  was  genuine ;  the  unhappy  lover  was 
convinced  that  she  loved  him.  Her  egoistic  resistance  de- 
luded him  into  a  belief  that  she  was  a  pure  and  sainted 
woman;  he  resigned  himself;  he  talked  of  Platonic  love,  did 
this  artillery  officer  ! 

When  Mme.  de  Langeais  had  played  with  religion  suffici- 
ently to  suit  her  own  purposes,  she  played  with  it  again  for 
Armand's  benefit.  She  wanted  to  bring  him  back  to  a  Chris- 
tian frame  of  mind;  she  brought  out  her  edition  of  "The 
Genius  of  Christianity,"  adapted  for  the  use  of  military  men. 
Montriveau  chafed ;  his  yoke  was  heavy.  Oh  !  at  that,  pos- 
sessed by  the  spirit  of  contradiction,  she  dinned  religion  into 
his  ears,  to  see  whether  God  might  not  rid  her  of  this  suitor, 
for  the  man's  persistence  was  beginning  to  frighten  her.  And 
in  any  case  she  was  glad  to  prolong  any  quarrel,  if  it  bade 
fair  to  keep  the  dispute  on  moral  grounds  for  an  indefinite 
period;  the  material  struggle  which  followed  it  was  more 
dangerous. 

But  if  the  time  of  her  opposition  on  the  ground  of  the  mar- 
riage law  might  be  said  to  be  the  civil  epoch  of  this  senti- 
mental warfare,  the  ensuing  phase  which  might  be  taken  to 
constitute  the  religious  epoch  had  also  its  crisis  and  conse- 
quent decline  of  severity. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  215 

Armand,  Happening  to  come  in  very  early  one  evening, 
found  M.  1'Abbe  Gondrand,  the  duchess'  spiritual  director, 
established  in  an  armchair  by  the  fireside,  looking  as  a  spirit- 
ual director  might  be  expected  to  look  while  digesting  his 
dinner  and  the  charming  sins  of  his  penitent.  In  the  eccle- 
siastic's bearing  there  was  a  stateliness  befitting  a  dignitary  of 
the  church  ;  and  the  episcopal  violet  hue  already  appeared  in 
his  dress.  At  sight  of  his  fresh,  well-preserved  complexion, 
smooth  forehead,  and  ascetic's  mouth,  Montriveau's  counte- 
nance grew  uncommonly  dark  ;  he  said  not  a  word  under  the 
malicious  scrutiny  of  the  other's  gaze,  and  greeted  neither 
the  lady  nor  the  priest.  The  lover  apart,  Montriveau  was  not 
wanting  in  tact;  so  a  few  glances  exchanged  with  the  bishop- 
designate  told  him  that  here  was  the  real  forger  of  the  duchess' 
armory  of  scruples. 

That  an  ambitious  abbe  should  control  the  happiness  of  a 
man  of  Montriveau's  temper,  and  by  underhand  ways  !  The 
thought  burst  in  a  furious  tide  over  his  face,  clenched  his 
fists,  and  set  him  chafing  and  pacing  to  and  fro;  but  when  he 
came  back  to  his  place  intending  to  make  a  scene,  a  single 
look  from  the  duchess  was  enough.  He  was  quiet. 

Any  other  woman  would  have  been  put  out  by  her  lover's 
gloomy  silence  ;  it  was  quite  otherwise  with  Mme.  de  Langeais. 
She  continued  her  conversation  with  M.  de  Gondrand  on  the 
necessity  of  reestablishing  the  church  in  its  ancient  splendor. 
And  she  talked  brilliantly.  The  church,  she  maintained, 
ought  to  be  a  temporal  as  well  as  a  spiritual  power,  stating  her 
case  better  than  the  abbe  had  done,  and  regretting  that  the 
Chamber  of  Peers,  unlike  the  English  House  of  Lords,  had 
no  bench  of  bishops.  Nevertheless,  the  abbe  rose,  yielded 
his  place  to  the  general,  and  took  his  leave,  knowing  that  in 
Lent  he  could  play  a  return  game.  As  for  the  duchess,  Mont- 
riveau's behavior  had  excited  her  curiosity  to  such  a  pitch  that 
she  scarcely  rose  to  return  her  director's  low  bow. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  friend  ?'? 


216  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"Why,  I  cannot  stomach  that  abbe  of  yours." 

"Why  did  you  not  take  a  book?"  she  asked,  careless 
whether  the  abbe,  then  closing  the  door,  heard  her  or  not. 

The  general  paused,  for  the  gesture  which  accompanied 
the  duchess'  speech  further  increased  the  exceeding  insolence 
of  her  words. 

"  My  dear  Antoinette,  thank  you  for  giving  love  preced- 
ence of  the  church ;  but,  for  pity's  sake,  allow  me  to  ask  one 
question " 

"  Oh  !  you  are  questioning  me  !  I  am  quite  willing.  You 
are  my  friend,  are  you  not  ?  I  certainly  can  open  the  bottom 
of  my  heart  to  you;  you  will  see  only  one  image  there." 

"  Do  you  talk  about  our  love  to  that  man?  " 

"  He  is  my  confessor." 

"  Does  he  know  that  I  love  you?  " 

"Monsieur  de  Montriveau,  you  cannot  claim,  I  think,  to 
penetrate  the  secrets  of  the  confessional  ?  " 

"Does  that  man  know  all  about  our  quarrels  and  my  love 
for  you? " 

•'*  That  man,  monsieur  ;  say  God  !  " 

"God  again!  I  ought  to  be  alone  in  your  heart.  But 
leave  God  alone  where  He  is,  for  the  love  of  God  and  me. 
Madame,  you  shall  not  go  to  confession  again,  or " 

"Or?"  she  repeated  sweetly. 

"  Or  I  will  never  come  back  here." 

"Then  go,  Armand.     Farewell,  farewell  for  ever." 

She  arose  and  went  to  her  boudior  without  so  much  as  a 
glance  at  Armand,  as  he  stood  with  his  hand  on  the  back  of 
a  chair.  How  long  he  stood  there  motionless  he  himself 
never  knew.  The  soul  within  has  the  mysterious  power  of 
expanding  as  of  contracting  space. 

He  opened  the  door  of  the  boudoir.  It  was  dark  within. 
A  faint  voice  was  raised  to  say  sharply — 

"  I  did  not  ring.  What  made  you  come  in  without  orders  ? 
Go  away,  Suzette." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  317 

"Then  you  suffer,"  exclaimed  Montriveau. 

"  Stand  up,  monsieur,  and  go  out  of  the  room  for  a  minute 
at  any  rate,"  she  said,  ringing  the  bell. 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse  rang  for  lights,"  said  he  to  the  foot- 
man, coming  in  with  the  candles.  When  the  lovers  were 
alone  together,  Mme.  de  Langeais  still  lay  on  her  couch  ,  she 
was  just  as  silent  and  motionless  as  if  Montriveau  had  not 
been  there. 

"  Dear,  I  was  wrong,"  he  began,  a  note  of  pain  and  a  sub- 
lime kindness  in  his  voice.  "  Indeed,  I  would  not  have  you 
without  religion " 

"  It  is  fortunate  that  you  can  recognize  the  necessity  of  a 
conscience,"  she  said  in  a  hard  voice,  without  looking  at  him. 
"  I  thank  you  in  God's  name." 

The  general  was  broken  down  by  her  harshness  ;  this  woman 
seemed  as  if  she  could  be  at  will  a  sister  or  a  stranger  to  him. 
He  made  one  despairing  stride  toward  the  door.  He  would 
leave  her  forever  without  another  word.  He  was  wretched  ; 
and  the  duchess  was  laughing  within  herself  over  mental  an- 
guish far  more  cruel  than  the  old  judicial  torture.  But  as  for 
going  away,  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  do  it.  In  any  sort  of 
crisis,  a  woman  is,  as  it  were,  bursting  with  a  certain  quantity 
of  things  to  say ;  so  long  as  she  has  not  delivered  herself  of 
them,  she  experiences  the  sensation  which  we  are  apt  to  feel 
at  the  sight  of  something  incomplete.  Mme.  de  Langeais 
had  not  said  all  that  was  in  her  mind.  She  took  up  her  par- 
able and  said — 

"We  nave  not  the  same  convictions,  general,  I  am  pained 
to  think.  It  would  be  dreadful  if  a  woman  could  not  believe 
in  a  religion  which  permits  us  to  love  beyortd  the  grave.  I  set 
Christian  sentiments  aside ;  you  cannot  understand  them. 
Let  me  simply  speak  to  you  of  expediency.  Would  you  for- 
bid a  woman  at  Court  the  table  of  the  Lord,  for  which  con- 
fession is  necessary,  when  it  is  customary  to  take  the  sacrament 
at  Easter?  People  must  certainly  do  something  for  their 


218  THE    THIRTEEN. 

party.  The  Liberals,  whatever  they  may  wish  to  do,  will 
never  destroy  the  religious  instinct.  Religion  will  always  be 
a  political  necessity.  Would  you  undertake  to  govern  a 
nation  of  logic-choppers?  Napoleon  was  afraid  to  try;  he 
persecuted  ideologists.  If  you  want  to  keep  people  from 
reasoning,  you  must  give  them  something  to  feel.  So  let  us 
accept  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  with  all  its  consequences. 
And  if  we  would  have  France  go  to  mass,  ought  we  not  to 
begin  by  going  ourselves?  Religion,  you  see,  Armand,  is  a 
bond  uniting  all  the  conservative  principles  which  enable 
the  rich  to  live  in  tranquillity.  Religion  and  the  rights  of 
property  are  intimately  connected.  It  is  certainly  a  finer 
thing  to  lead  a  nation  by  ideas  of  morality  than  by  fear  of  the 
scaffold,  as  in  the  time  of  the  Terror — the  one  method  by 
which  your  odious  Revolution  could  enforce  obedience.  The 
priest  and  the  King — that  means  you,  and  me,  and  the  prin- 
cess my  neighbor ;  and,  in  a  word,  the  interests  of  all  honest 
people  personified.  There,  my  friend,  just  be  so  good  as  to 
belong  to  your  party,  you  that  might  be  its  Sulla  if  you  had 
the  slightest  ambition  that  way.  I  know  nothing  about  poli- 
tics myself ;  I  argue  from  my  own  feelings;  but  still  I  know 
enough  to  guess  that  society  would  be  overturned  if  people 

were  always  calling  its  foundations  in  question " 

"  If  that  is  how  your  Court  and  your  Government  think,  I 
am  sorry  for  you,"  broke  in  Montriveau.  "  The  Restoration, 
madame,  ought  to  say,  like  Catherine  dei  Medici,  when  she 
heard  that  the  battle  of  Dreux  was  lost :  '  Very  well ;  now  we 
will  go  to  their  meeting-houses.'  Now  1815  was  your  battle 
of  Dreux.  Like  the  royal  power  of  those  days,  you  won  in 
fact,  while  you  lost  in  right.  Political  Protestantism  has 
gained  an  ascendency  over  people's  minds.  If  you  have  no 
mind  to  issue  your  Edict  of  Nantes;  or  if,  when  it  is  issued, 
you  publish  a  Revocation  ;  if  you  should  one  day  be  accused 
and  convicted  of  repudiating  the  Charter,  which  is  simply  a 
pledge  given  to  maintain  the  interests  established  under  the 


THE    THIRTEEN.  216 

Republic,  then  the  Revolution  will  rise  again,  terrible  in  her 
strength,  and  strike  but  a  single  blow.  It  will  not  be  the 
Revolution  that  will  go  into  exile  ;  she  is  the  very  soil  of 
France.  Men  die,  but  people's  interests  do  not  die —  Eh, 
great  heavens  !  what  are  France  and  the  crown  and  rightful 
sovereigns,  and  the  whole  world  beside,  to  us?  Idle  words 
compared  with  my  happiness.  Let  them  reign  or  be  hurled 
from  the  throne,  little  do  I  care.  Where  am  I  now  ?  " 

"  In  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais'  boudoir,  my  friend." 

"  No,  no.  No  more  of  the  duchess,  no  more  of  Langeais  ; 
I  am  with  my  dear  Antoinette." 

"  Will  you  do  me  the  pleasure  to  stay  where  you  are,"  she 
said,  laughing  and  pushing  him  back,  gently  however. 

"So  you  have  never  loved  me,"  he  retorted,  and  anger 
flashed  in  lightning  from  his  eyes. 

"  No,  dear  ;  "  but  the  "  No  "  was  equivalent  to  "  Yes." 

"  I  am  a  great  ass,"  he  said,  kissing  her  hands.  The  terri- 
ble queen  was  a  woman  once  more.  "  Antoinette,"  he  went 
on,  laying  his  head  on  her  feet,  "  you  are  too  chastely  tender 
to  speak  of  our  happiness  to  any  one  in  this  world." 

"Oh  !  "  she  cried,  rising  to  her  feet  with  a  swift,  graceful 
spring,  "you  are  a  great  simpleton."  And  without  another 
word  she  fled  into  the  drawing-room. 

"What  is  it  now?"  wondered  the  general,  little  knowing 
that  the  touch  of  his  burning  forehead  had  sent  a  swift  electric 
thrill  through  her  from  foot  to  head. 

In  hot  wrath  he  followed  her  to  the  drawing-room,  only  to 
hear  divinely  sweet  chords.  The  duchess  was  at  the  piano. 
If  the  man  of  science  or  the  poet  can  at  once  enjoy  and  com- 
prehend, bringing  his  intelligence  to  bear  upon  his  enjoyment 
without  loss  of  delight,  he  is  conscious  that  the  alphabet  and 
phraseology  of  music  are  but  cunning  instruments  for  the  com- 
poser, like  the  wood  and  copper  wire  under  the  hands  of  the 
executant.  For  the  poet  and  the  man  of  science  there  is  a 
musir  existing  apart,  underlying  the  double  expression  of  this 


220  THE   THIRTEEN. 

language  of  the  spirit  and  senses.  Andiamo  mio  ben  can  draw- 
tears  of  joy  or  pitying  laughter  at  the  will  of  the  singer ;  and 
not  infrequently  one  here  and  there  in  the  world,  some  girl 
unable  to  live  and  bear  the  heavy  burden  of  an  unguessed 
pain,  some  man  whose  soul  vibrates  with  the  throb  of  passion, 
may  take  up  a  musical  theme,  and  lo !  heaven  is  opened  for 
them,  or  they  find  a  language  for  themselves  in  some  sublime 
melody,  some  song  lost  to  the  world. 

The  general  was  listening  now  to  such  a  song ;  a  mysterious 
music  unknown  to  all  other  ears,  as  the  solitary  plaint  of  some 
mateless  bird  dying  alone  in  a  virgin  forest. 

"Great  heavens!  what  are  you  playing  there  ?"  he  asked 
in  an  unsteady  voice. 

"The  prelude  of  a  ballad,  called,  I  believe,  'Fleuve  du 
Tage.'" 

"  I  did  not  know  that  there  was  such  music  in  a  piano,"  he 
returned. 

"Ah  !  "  she  said,  and  for  the  first  time  she  looked  at  him 
as  a  woman  looks  at  the  man  she  loves,  "nor  do  you  know, 
my  friend,  that  I  love  you,  and  that  you  cause  me  horrible 
suffering ;  and  that  I  feel  that  I  must  utter  my  cry  of  pain 
without  putting  it  too  plainly  into  words.  If  I  did  not  I 
should  yield But  you  see  nothing." 

"And  you  will  not  make  me  happy  !  " 

"  Armand,  I  should  die  of  sorrow  the  next  day." 

The  general  turned  abruptly  from  her  and  went.  But  out 
in  the  street  he  brushed  away  the  tears  that  he  would  not  let 
fall. 

The  religious  phase  lasted  for  three  months.  At  the  end 
of  that  time  the  duchess  grew  weary  of  vain  repetitions ;  the 
church,  bound  hand  and  foot,  was  delivered  up  to  her  lover. 
Possibly  she  may  have  feared  that  by  sheer  dint  of  talking  of 
eternity  she  might  perpetuate  his  love  in  this  world  and  the 
next.  For  her  own  sake,  it  must  be  believed  that  no  man  had 
touched  her  heart,  or  her  conduct  would  be  inexcusable.  She 


THE    THIRTEEN.  221 

was  young;  the  time  when  men  and  women  feel  that  they 
cannot  afford  to  lose  time  or  to  quibble  over  their  joys  was 
still  far  off.  She,  no  doubt,  was  on  the  verge  not  of  first 
love,  but  of  her  first  experience  of  the  bliss  of  love.  And 
from  inexperience,  for  want  of  the  painful  lessons  which 
would  have  taught  her  to  value  the  treasure  poured  out  at 
her  feet,  she  was  playing  with  it.  Knowing  nothing  of  the 
glory  and  rapture  of  the  light,  she  was  fain  to  stay  in  the 
shadow. 

Armand  was  just  beginning  to  understand  this  strange  situa- 
tion ;  he  put  his  hope  in  the  first  word  spoken  by  nature. 
Every  evening,  as  he  came  away  from  Mme.  de  Langeais',  he 
told  himself  that  no  woman  would  accept  the  tenderest,  most 
delicate  proofs  of  a  man's  love  during  seven  months,  nor  yield 
passively  to  the  slighter  demands  of  passion,  only  to  cheat 
love  at  the  last.  He  was  waiting  patiently  for  the  sun  to  gain 
power,  not  doubting  but  that  he  should  receive  the  earliest 
fruits.  The  married  woman's  hesitations  and  the  religious 
scruples  he  could  quite  well  understand.  He  even  rejoiced 
over  those  battles.  He  mistook  the  duchess'  heartless  coquetry 
for  modesty ;  and  he  would  not  have  had  her  otherwise.  So 
he  had  loved  to  see  her  devising  obstacles;  was  he  not  gradu- 
ally triumphing  over  them?  Did  not  every  victory  won  swell 
the  meagre  sum  of  lovers'  intimacies  long  denied,  and  at  last 
conceded  with  every  sign  of  love?  Still,  he  had  had  such 
leisure  to  taste  the  full  sweetness  of  every  small  successive  con- 
quest on  which  a  lover  feeds  his  love,  that  these  had  come  to 
be  matters  of  use  and  wont.  So  far  as  obstacles  went,  there 
were  none  now  save  his  own  awe  of  her  ;  nothing  else  left  be- 
tween him  and  his  desire  save  the  whims  of  her  who  allowed 
him  to  call  her  Antoinette.  So  he  made  up  his  mind  to  de- 
mand more,  to  demand  all.  Embarrassed  like  a  young  lover 
who  cannot  dare  to  believe  that  his  idol  can  stoop  so  low,  he 
hesitated  for  a  long  time.  He  passed  through  the  experience 
of  terrible  reactions  within  himself.  A  set  purpose  was  anni- 


222  THE    THIRTEEN. 

hilated  by  a  word,  and  definite  resolves  died  within  him  on 
the  threshold.  He  despised  himself  for  his  weakness,  and  still 
his  desire  remained  unuttered. 

Nevertheless,  one  'evening,  after  sitting  in  gloomy  melan- 
choly, he  brought  out  a  fierce  demand  for  his  illegally  legiti- 
mate rights.  The  duchess  had  not  to  wait  for  her  bond-slave's 
request  to  guess  his  desire.  When  was  a  man's  desire  a  secret  ? 
And  have  not  women  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  meaning 
of  certain  changes  of  countenance? 

"  What !  you  wish  to  be  my  friend  no  longer?"  she  broke 
in  at  the  first  words,  and  a  divine  red  surging  like  new  blood 
under  the  transparent  skin  lent  brightness  to  her  eyes.  "As 
a  reward  for  my  generosity,  you  would  dishonor  me  ?  Just 
reflect  a  little.  I  myself  have  thought  much  over  this  ;  and  I 
think  always  for  us  both.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  woman's 
loyalty ,  and  we  can  no  more  fail  in  it  than  you  can  fail  in 
honor.  I  cannot  bind  myself.  If  I  am  yours,  how,  in  any 
sense,  can  I  be  Monsieur  de  Langeais'  wife  ?  Can  you  require 
the  sacrifice  of  my  position,  my  rank,  my  whole  life,  in  return 
for  a  doubtful  love  that  could  not  wait  patiently  for  seven 
months  ?  What !  already  you  would  rob  me  of  my  right  to 
dispose  of  myself?  No,  no;  you  must  not  talk  like  this 
again.  No,  not  another  word.  I  will  not,  I  cannot  listen  to 
you." 

Mme.  de  Langeais  raised  both  hands  to  her  head  to  push 
back  the  tufted  curls  from  her  hot  forehead ;  she  seemed  very 
much  excited. 

"  You  come  to  a  weak  woman  with  your  purpose  definitely 
planned  out.  You  say — '  For  a  certain  length  of  time  she 
will  talk  to  me  of  her  husband,  then  of  God,  and  then  of 
the  inevitable  consequences.  But  I  will  use  and  abuse  the 
ascendency  I  shall  gain  over  her  ;  I  will  make  myself  indis- 
pensable;  all  the  bonds  of  habit,  all  the  misconstructions 
of  outsiders,  will  make  for  me  ;  and  at  length,  when  our 
liaison  is  taken  for  granted  by  all  the  world,  I  shall  be  this 


THE    THIRTEEN.  223 

woman's  master.'  Now,  be  frank,  these  are  your  thoughts ! 
Oh  !  you  calculate,  and  you  say  that  you  love.  Shame  on 
you  !  You  are  enamored  ?  Ah  !  that  I  well  believe  !  You 
wish  to  possess  me,  to  have  me  for  your  mistress,  that  is  all ! 
Very  well  then,  No !  The  Duchesse  de  Langeais  will  not 
descend  so  far.  Simple  bourgeoises  may  be  the  victims  of 
your  treachery — I,  never  !  Nothing  gives  me  assurance  of 
your  love.  You  speak  of  my  beauty  ;  I  may  lose  every  trace 
of  it  in  six  months,  like  the  dear  princess,  my  neighbor.  You 
are  captivated  by  my  wit,  my  grace.  Great  heavens  !  you 
would  soon  grow  used  to  them  and  to  the  pleasures  of  posses- 
sion. Have  not  the  little  concessions  that  I  was  weak  enough 
to  make  come  to  be  a  matter  of  course  in  the  last  few  months? 
Some  day,  when  ruin  comes,  you  will  give  me  no  reason  for 
the  change  in  you  beyond  a  curt  :  '  I  have  ceased  to  care  for 
you.'  Then,  rank  and  fortune  and  honor  and  all  that  was 
the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  will  be  swallowed  up  in  one  disap- 
pointed hope.  I  shall  have  children  to  bear  witness  to  my 
shame,  and —  With  an  involuntary  gesture  she  inter- 

rupted herself,  and  continued  :  "  But  I  am  too  good-natured 
to  explain  all  this  to  you  when  you  know  it  better  than  I. 
Come  !  let  us  stay  as  we  are.  I  am  only  too  fortunate  in  that 
I  can  still  break  these  bonds  which  you  think  so  strong.  Is 
there  anything  so  very  heroic  in  coming  to  the  Hotel  de 
Langeais  to  spend  an  evening  with  a  woman  whose  prattle 
amuses  you? — a  woman  whom  you  take  for  a  plaything? 
Why,  half-a-dozen  young  coxcombs  come  here  just  as  regularly 
every  afternoon  between  three  and  five.  They,  too,  are  very 
generous,  I  am  to  suppose?  I  make  fun  of  them  ;  they  stand 
my  petulance  and  insolence  pretty  quietly,  and  make  me  laugh  ; 
but  as  for  you,  I  give  all  the  treasures  of  my  soul  to  you,  and 
you  wish  to  ruin  me — you  try  my  patience  in  endless  ways. 
Hush,  that  will  do,  that  will  do,"  she  continued,  seeing  that 
he  was  about  to  speak,  ''  you  have  no  heart,  no  soul,  no  deli- 
cacy. I  know  what  you  want  to  tell  me.  Very  well,  then — 


224  THE    THIRTEEN. 

yes.  I  would  rather  you  should  take  me  for  a  cold,  insensible 
woman,  with  no  devotion  in  her  composition,  no  heart  even, 
than  be  taken  by  everybody  else  for  a  vulgar  person,  and  be 
condemned  to  your  so-called  pleasures,  of  which  you  would 
most  certainly  tire,  and  to  everlasting  punishment  for  it  after- 
ward. Your  selfish  love  is  not  worth  so  many  sacrifices." 

The  words  give  but  a  very  inadequate  idea  of  the  discourse 
which  the  duchess  trilled  out  with  the  quick  volubility  of  a 
bird-organ.  Nor,  truly,  was  there  anything  to  prevent  her 
from  talking  on  for  some  time  to  come,  for  poor  Armand's 
only  reply  to  the  torrent  of  flute  notes  was  a  silence  filled  with 
cruelly  painful  thoughts.  He  was  just  beginning  to  see  that 
this  woman  was  playing  with  him ;  he  divined  instinctively 
that  a  devoted  love,  a  responsive  love,  does  not  reason  and 
count  the  consequences  in  this  way.  Then,  as  he  heard  her 
reproach  him  with  detestable  motives,  he  felt  something  like 
shame  as  he  remembered  that  unconsciously  he  had  made 
those  very  calculations.  With  angelic  honesty  of  purpose,  he 
looked  within,  and  self-examination  found  nothing  but  selfish- 
ness in  all  his  thoughts  and  motives,  in  the  answers  which  he 
framed  and  could  not  utter.  He  was  self-convicted.  In  his 
despair  he  longed  to  fling  himself  from  the  window.  The 
egoism  of  it  was  intolerable. 

What  indeed  can  a  man  say  when  a  woman  will  not  believe 
in  love  ?  Let  me  prove  how  much  I  love  you.  The  /  is 
always  there. 

The  heroes  of  the  boudoir,  in  such  circumstances,  can  follow 
the  example  of  the  primitive  logician  who  preceded  the  Pyr- 
rhonists  and  denied  movement.  Montriveau  was  not  equal  to 
this  feat.  With  all  his  audacity,  he  lacked  that  precise  kind 
which  never  deserts  an  adept  in  the  formulas  of  feminine 
algebra.  If  so  many  women,  and  even  the  best  of  women, 
fall  a  prey  to  a  kind  of  expert  to  whom  the  vulgar  give  a 
grosser  name,  it  is  perhaps  because  the  said  experts  are  great 
,  and  love,  in  spite  of  its  delicious  poetry  of  sentiment, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  225 

requires  a  little  more  geometry  than  the  generality  of  people 
are  wont  to  think. 

Now  the  duchess  and  Montrivcau  were  alike  in  this — they 
were  both  equally  unversed  in  love  lore.  The  lady's  knowl- 
edge of  theory  was  but  scanty  ;  in  practice  she  knew  nothing 
whatever  ;  she  felt  nothing,  and  reflected  over  everything. 
Montriveau  had  had  but  little  experience,  was  absolutely 
ignorant  of  theory,  and  felt  too  much  to  reflect  at  all.  Both 
therefore  were  enduring  the  consequences  of  the  singular 
situation.  At  that  supreme  moment  the  myriad  thoughts  in 
his  mind  might  have  been  reduced  to  the  formula — "  Submit 
to  be  mine —  '  words  which  seem  horribly  selfish  to  a 
woman  for  whom  they  awaken  no  memories,  recall  no  ideas. 
Something  nevertheless  he  must  say.  And  what  was  more, 
though  her  barbed  shafts  had  set  his  blood  tingling,  though 
the  short  phrases  that  she  discharged  at  him  one  by  one  were 
very  keen  and  sharp  and  cold,  he  must  control  himself  lest  he 
should  lose  all  by  an  outbreak  of  anger. 

"Madame  la  Duchesse,  I  am  in  despair  that  God  should 
have  invented  no  way  for  a  woman  to  confirm  the  gift  of  her 
heart  save  by  adding  the  gift  of  her  person.  The  high  value 
which  you  yourself  put  upon  the  gift  teaches  me  that  I  cannot 
attach  less  importance  to  it.  If  you  have  given  me  your  in- 
most self  and  your  whole  heart,  as  you  tell  me,  what  can  the 
rest  matter?  And  beside,  if  my  happiness  means  so  painful  a 
sacrifice,  let  us  say  no  more  about  it.  But  you  must  pardon  a 
man  of  spirit  if  he  feels  humiliated  at  being  taken  for  a 
spaniel." 

The  tone  in  which  the  last  remark  was  uttered  might  per- 
haps have  frightened  another  woman  ;  but  when  the  wearer  of  a 
petticoat  has  allowed  herself  to  be  addressed  as  a  divinity, 
and  thereby  set  herself  above  all  other  mortals,  no  power  on 
earth  can  be  so  haughty. 

"  Monsieur  le  Marquis,  I  am  in  despair  that  God  should 
not  have  invented  some  nobler  way  for  a  man  to  confirm  the 
15 


226  THE    THIRTEEN. 

gift  of  his  heart  than  by  the  manifestation  of  prodigiously 
vulgar  desires.  We  become  bond-slaves  when  we  give  our- 
selves body  and  soul,  but  a  man  is  bound  to  nothing  by 
accepting  the  gift.  Who  will  assure  me  that  love  will  last? 
The  very  love  that  I  might  show  for  you  at  every  moment,  the 
better  to  keep  your  love,  might  serve  you  as  a  reason  for  de- 
serting me.  I  have  no  wish  to  be  a  second  edition  of  Madame 
de  Beauseant.  Who  can  ever  know  what  it  is  that  keeps  you 
beside  us  ?  Our  persistent  coldness  of  heart  is  the  cause  of 
an  unfailing  passion  in  some  of  you ;  other  men  ask  for  an 
untiring  devotion,  to  be  idolized  at  every  moment ;  some  for 
gentleness,  others  for  tyranny.  No  woman  in  this  world  as 
yet  has  really  read  the  riddle  of  man's  heart." 

There  was  a  pause.  When  she  spoke  again  it  was  in  a 
different  tone. 

"  After  all,  my  friend,  you  cannot  prevent  a  woman  from 
trembling  at  the  question:  'Will  this  love  last  always?' 
Hard  though  my  words  may  be,  the  dread  of  losing  you  puts 
them  into  my  mouth.  Oh,  me  !  it  is  not  I  who  speaks,  dear, 
it  is  reason  ;  and  how  should  any  one  so  mad  as  I  be  reason- 
able? In  truth,  I  arn  nothing  of  the  sort." 

The  poignant  irony  of  her  answer  had  changed  before  the 
end  into  the  most  musical  accents  in  which  a  woman  could 
find  utterance  for  ingenuous  love.  To  listen  to  her  words 
was  to  pass  in  a  moment  from  martyrdom  to  heaven.  Mon- 
triveau  grew  pale  ;  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  fell  on 
his  knees  before  a  woman.  He  kissed  the  duchess'  skirt  hem, 
her  knees,  her  feet ;  but  for  the  credit  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain  it  is  necessary  to  respect  the  mysteries  of  its  boudoirs, 
where  many  are  fain  to  take  the  utmost  that  Love  can  give 
without  giving  proof  of  love  in  return. 

The  duchess  thought  herself  generous  when  she  suffered  her- 
self to  be  adored.  But  Montriveau  was  in  a  wild  frenzy  of 
joy  over  her  complete  surrender  of  the  position. 

"  Dear  Antoinette,"  he  cried.     «  Yes,  you  are  right ;  I  will 


THE    THIRTEEN.  227 

not  have  you  doubt  any  longer.  I  too  am  trembling  at  this 
moment — lest  the  angel  of  my  life  should  leave  me;  I  wish  I 
could  invent  some  tie  that  might  bind  us  to  each  other  irre- 
vocably." 

"Ah!"  she  said,  under  her  breath,  "so  I  was  right,  you 
see." 

"  Let  me  say  all  that  I  have  to  say ;  I  will  scatter  all  your 
fears  with  a  word.  Listen  !  if  I  deserted  you,  I  should  de- 
serve to  die  a  thousand  deaths.  Be  wholly  mine,  and  I  will 
give  you  the  right  to  kill  me  if  I  am  false.  I  myself  will 
write  a  letter  explaining  certain  reasons  for  taking  my  own 
life ;  I  will  make  my  final  arrangements,  in  short.  You  shall 
have  the  letter  in  your  keeping ;  in  the  eye  of  the  law  it  will 
be  a  sufficient  explanation  of  my  death.  You  can  avenge 
yourself,  and  fear  nothing  from  God  or  men  " 

"What  good  would  the  letter  be  to  me?  What  would  life 
be  if  I  had  lost  your  love?  If  I  wished  to  kill  you,  should  I 
not  be  ready  to  follow?  No;  thank  you  for  the  thought,  but 
I  do  not  want  the  letter.  Should  I  not  begin  to  dread  that 
you  were  faithful  to  me  through  fear?  And  if  a  man  knows 
that  he  must  risk  his  life  for  a  stolen  pleasure,  might  it  not 
seem  more  tempting?  Armand,  the  thing  I  ask  of  you  is  the 
one  hard  thing  to  do." 

"  Then  what  is  it  that  you  wish?  " 

"Your  obedience  and  my  liberty." 

"Ah,  God  !  "  cried  he,  "  I  am  a  child." 

"A  wayward,  much-spoilt  child,"  she  said,  stroking  the 
thick  hair,  for  his  head  still  lay  on  her  knee.  "Ah  !  and 
loved  far  more  than  he  believes,  and  yet  he  is  very  disobedi- 
ent. Why  not  stay  as  we  are?  Why  not  sacrifice  to  me  the 
desires  that  hurt  me?  Why  not  take  what  I  can  give,  when 
it  is  all  that  I  can  honestly  grant  ?  Are  you  not  happy, 
Armand?" 

"  Oh  yes,  I  am  happy  when  I  have  not  a  doubt  left.  An- 
toinette, doubt  in  love  is  a  kind  of  death,  is  it  not?" 


228  THE    THIRTEEN. 

In  a  moment  he  showed  himself  as  he  was,  as  all  men  are 
under  the  influence  of  that  hot  fever  ;  he  grew  eloquent,  in- 
sinuating. And  the  duchess  tasted  the  pleasures  which  she 
reconciled  with  her  conscience  by  some  private,  Jesuitical 
ukase  of  her  own  ;  Armand's  love  gave  her  a  thrill  of  cerebral 
excitement  which  custom  made  as  necessary  to  her  as  society, 
or  the  opera.  To  feel  that  she  was  adored  by  this  man,  who 
rose  above  other  men,  whose  character  frightened  her ;  to 
treat  him  like  a  child  ;  to  play  with  him  as  Poppaea  played 
with  Nero — many  women,  like  the  wives  of  King  Henry 
VIII.,  have  paid  for  such  a  perilous  delight  with  all  the  blood 
in  their  veins.  Grim -presentiment  !  Even  as  she  surrendered 
the  delicate,  pale,  gold  curls  to  his  touch,  and  felt  the  close 
pressure  of  his  hand,  the  little  hand  of  a  man  whose  greatness 
she  could  not  mistake  ;  even  as  she  herself  played  with  his 
dark,  thick  locks,  in  that  boudoir  where  she  reigned  a  queen, 
the  duchess  would  say  to  herself — 

"This  man  is  capable  of  killing  me  if  he  once  finds  out 
that  I  am  playing  with  him." 

Armand  de  Montriveau  stayed  with  her  till  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  From  that  moment  this  woman,  whom  he 
loved,  was  neither  a  duchess  nor  a  Navarreins ;  Antoinette, 
in  her  disguises,  had  gone  so  far  as  to  appear  to  be  a  woman. 
On  that  most  blissful  evening,  the  sweetest  prelude  ever  played 
by  a  Parisienne  to  what  the  world  calls  "a  slip  ;  "  in  spite  of 
all  her  affectations  of  a  coyness  which  she  did  not  feel,  the 
general  saw  all  maidenly  beauty  in  her.  He  had  some  excuse 
for  believing  that  so  many  storms  of  caprice  had  been  but 
clouds  covering  a  heavenly  soul ;  that  these  must  be  lifted  one 
by  one  like  the  veils  that  hid  her  divine  loveliness.  The 
duchess  became,  for  him,  the  most  simple  and  girlish  mistress ; 
she  was  the  one  woman  in  the  world  for  him ;  and  he  went 
away  quite  happy  in  that  at  last  he  had  brought  her  to  give 
him  such  pledges  of  love  that  it  seemed  to  him  impossible 


THE    THIRTEEN.  229 

but  that  he  should  be  but  her  husband  henceforth  in  secret, 
her  choice  sanctioned  by  heaven. 

Armand  went  slowly  home,  turning  this  thought  in  his 
mind  with  the  impartiality  of  a  man  who  is  conscious  of  all 
the  responsibilities  that  love  lays  on  him  while  he  tastes  the 
sweetness  of  its  joys.  He  went  along  the  quays  to  see  the 
widest  possible  space  of  sky  ;  his  heart  had  grown  in  him  ; 
he  would  fain  have  had  the  bounds  of  the  firmament  and  of 
earth  enlarged.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  lungs  drew  an 
ampler  breath.  In  the  course  of  his  self-examination,  as  he 
walked,  he  vowed  to  love  this  woman  so  devoutly  that  every 
day  of  her  life  she  should  find  absolution  for  her  sins  against 
society  in  unfailing  happiness.  Sweet  stirrings  of  life  when 
life  is  at  the  full !  The  man  that  is  strong  enough  to  steep 
his  soul  in  the  color  of  one  emotion  feels  infinite  joy  as 
glimpses  open  out  for  him  of  an  ardent  lifetime  that  knows 
no  diminution  of  passion  to  the  end  ;  even  so  it  is  permitted 
to  certain  mystics,  in  ecstasy,  to  behold  the  Light  of  God. 
Love  would  be  naught  without  the  belief  that  it  would  last 
for  ever;  love  grows  great  through  constancy.  It  was  thus 
that,  wholly  absorbed  by  his  happiness,  Montriveau  under- 
stood passion. 

"  We  belong  to  each  other  for  ever  !  " 

The  thought  was  like  a  talisman  fulfilling  the  wishes  of  his 
life.  He  did  not  ask  whether  the  duchess  might  not  change, 
whether  her  love  might  not  last.  No,  for  he  had  faith.  With- 
out that  virtue  there  is  no  future  for  Christianity,  and  perhaps 
it  is  even  more  necessary  to  society.  A  conception  of  life  as 
feeling  occurred  to  him  for  the  first  time ;  hitherto  he  had 
lived  by  action,  the  most  strenuous  exertion  of  human  ener- 
gies, the  physical  devotion,  as  it  may  be  called,  of  the  sol- 
dier. 

Next  day  M.  de  Montriveau  went  early  in  the  direction  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  He  had  made  an  appointment 
at  a  house  not  far  from  the  Hotel  de  Langeais ;  and  the  busi- 


230  THE    THIRTEEN. 

ness  over,  he  went  thitner  as  if  to  his  own  home.  The  gen- 
eral's companion  chanced  to  be  a  man  for  whom  he  appeared 
to  feel  a  kind  of  repulsion  whenever  he  met  him  in  other 
houses.  This  was  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles,  whose  repu- 
tation had  grown  so  great  in  Paris  boudoirs.  He  was  witty, 
clever,  and  what  was  more — courageous ;  he  set  the  fashion  to 
all  the  young  men  in  Paris.  As  a  man  of  gallantry,  his 
success  and  experience  were  equally  matters  of  envy ;  and 
neither  fortune  nor  birth  was  wanting  in  his  case,  qualifica- 
tions which  add  such  lustre  in  Paris  to  a  reputation  as  a  leader 
of  fashion.* 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  asked  M.  de  Ronquerolles. 

•'  To  Madame  de  Langeais'." 

"  Ah,  true.  I  forgot  that  you  had  allowed  her  to  lime  you. 
You  are  wasting  your  affections  on  her  when  they  might  be 
much  better  employed  elsewhere.  I  could  have  told  you  of 
half-a-score  of  women  in  the  financial  world,  any  on?  of  them 
a  thousand  times  better  worth  your  while  than  that  titled 
courtesan,  who  does  with  her  brains  what  less  artificial  women 
do  with " 

"What  is  this,  my  dear  fellow?"  Armand  broke  in. 
"The  duchess  is  an  angel  of  innocence." 

Ronquerolles  began  to  laugh. 

"  Things  being  thus,  dear  boy,"  said  he,  '•'  it  is  my  duty  to 
enlighten  you.  Just  a  word  ;  there  is  no  harm  in  it  between 
ourselves.  Has  the  duchess  surrendered  ?  If  so,  I  have  noth- 
ing more  to  say.  Come,  give  me  your  confidence.  There  is 
no  occasion  to  waste  your  time  in  grafting  your  great  nature 
on  that  unthankful  stock,  when  all  your  hopes  and  cultivation 
will  come  to  nothing." 

Armand  ingenuously  made  a  kind  of  general  report  of  his 
position,  enumerating  with  much  minuteness  the  slender  rights 
so  hardly  won.  Ronquerolles  burst  into  a  peal  of  laughter 

*  Montriveau  and  Ronquerolles  belonged  to  "  The  Thirteen."  See 
Preface. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  231 

so  heartless  that  it  would  have  cost  any  other  man  his  life. 
But  from  their  manner  of  speaking  and  looking  at  each  other 
during  that  colloquy  beneath  the  wall,  in  a  corner  almost  as 
remote  from  intrusion  ai  the  desert  itself,  it  was  easy  to  imagine 
the  friendship  between  the  two  men  knew  no  bounds,  and  that 
no  power  on  earth  could  estrange  them. 

"  My  dear  Armand,  why  did  you  not  tell  me  that  the 
duchess  was  a  puzzle  to  you  ?  I  would  have  given  you  a  little 
advice  which  might  have  brought  your  flirtation  properly 
through.  You  must  know,  to  begin  with,  that  the  women  of 
our  faubourg,  like  any  other  women,  love  to  steep  themselves 
in  love  ;  but  they  have  a  mind  to  possess  and  not  to  be  pos- 
sessed. They  have  made  a  sort  of  compromise  with  human 
nature.  The  code  of  their  parish  gives  them  a  pretty  wide 
latitude  short  of  the  last  transgression.  The  sweets  enjoyed 
by  this  fair  duchess  of  yours  are  so  many  venial  sins  to  be 
washed  away  in  the  waters  of  penitence.  But  if  you  had  the 
impertinence  to  ask  in  earnest  for  the  mortal  sin  to  which  natu- 
rally you  are  sure  to  attach  the  highest  importance,  you  would 
see  the  deep  disdain  with  which  the  door  of  the  boudoir  and 
the  house  would  be  incontinently  shut  upon  you.  The  tender 
Antoinette  would  dismiss  everything  from  her  memory  ;  you 
would  be  less  than  a  cipher  for  her.  She  would  wipe  away 
your  kisses,  my  dear  friend,  as  indifferently  as  she  would  per- 
form her  ablutions.  She  would  sponge  love  from  her  cheeks 
as  she  washes  off  rouge.  We  know  women  of  that  sort — the 
thoroughbred  Parisienne.  Have  you  ever  noticed  a  grisette 
tripping  along  the  street  ?  Her  face  is  pretty  as  a  picture.  A 
neat  cap,  fresh  cheeks,  trim  hair,  a  guileful  smile,  and  the  rest 
of  her  almost  neglected.  Is  not  this  true  to  the  life?  Well, 
that  is  the  Pamienne.  She  knows  that  her  face  is  all  that  will 
be  seen,  so  she  devotes  all  her  care,  finery,  and  vanity  to  her 
head.  The  duchess  is  the  same;  the  head  is  everything  with  her. 
She  can  only  feel  through  her  intellect,  her  heart  lies  in  her 
brain,  she  is  a  sort  of  intellectual  epicure,  she  has  a  head-voice. 


232  THE    THIRTEEN. 

We  call  that  kind  of  poor  creature  a  Lai's  of  the  intellect.  You 
have  been  taken  in  like  a  boy.  If  you  doubt  it,  you  can  have 
proof  of  it  to-night,  this  morning,  this  instant.  Go  up  to 
her,  try  the  demand  as  an  experiment,  insist  peremptorily  if  it 
is  refused.  You  might  set  about  it  like  the  late  Marechal  de 
Richelieu,  and  yet  get  nothing  for  your  pains." 

Armand  was  dumb  with  amazement. 

"  Has  your  desire  reached  the  point  of  infatuation  ?" 

"I  want  her  at  any  cost !  "  Montriveau  cried  out  despair- 
ingly. 

"Very  well.  Now,  look  here.  Be  as  inexorable  as  she  is 
herself.  Try  to  humiliate  her,  to  sting  her  vanity.  Do  #0/try 
to  move  her  heart,  nor  her  soul,  but  the  woman's  nerves  and 
temperament,  for  she  is  both  nervous  and  lymphatic.  If  you 
can  once  awaken  desire  in  her,  you  are  safe.  But  you  must 
drop  these  romantic  boyish  notions  of  yours.  If  when  once 
you  have  her  in  your  eagle's  talons  you  yield  a  point  or  draw 
back,  if  you  so  much  as  stir  an  eyelid,  if  she  thinks  that  she 
can  regain  her  ascendency  over  you,  she  will  slip  out  of  your 
clutches  like  a  fish,  and  you  will  never  catch  her  again. 
Be  inflexible  as  law.  Show  no  more  charity  than  the  heads- 
man. Hit  hard,  and  then  hit  again.  Strike  and  keep 
on  striking  as  if  you  were  giving  her  the  knout.  Duchesses 
are  made  of  hard  stuff,  my  dear  Armand  ;  there  is  a  sort 
of  feminine  nature  that  is  only  softened  by  repeated  blows ; 
and  as  suffering  develops  a  heart  in  women  of  that  sort, 
so  it  is  a  work  of  charity  not  to  spare  the  rod.  Do 
you  persevere.  Ah !  when  pain  has  thoroughly  relaxed 
those  nerves  and  softened  the  fibres  that  you  take  to  be  so 
pliant  and  yielding;  when  a  shriveled  heart  has  learned  to 
expand  and  contract  and  to  beat  under  this  discipline;  when 
the  brain  has  capitulated — then,  perhaps,  passion  may  enter 
among  the  steel  springs  of  this  machinery  that  turns  out  tears 
and  affectations  and  languors  and  melting  phrases ;  then  you 
shall  see  a  most  magnificent  conflagration  (always  supposing 


THE    THIRTEEN.  283 

that  the  chimney  takes  fire).  The  steel  feminine  system  will 
glow  red-hot  like  iron  in  the  forge ;  that  kind  of  heat  lasts 
longer  than  any  other,  and  the  glow  of  it  may  possibly  turn 
to  love. 

"  Still,"  he  continued,  "  I  have  my  doubts.  And,  after  all, 
is  it  worth  while  to  take  so  much  trouble  with  the  duchess? 
Between  ourselves,  a  man  of  my  stamp  ought  first  to  take  her 
in  hand  and  break  her  in  ;  I  would  make  a  charming  woman 
of  her ;  she  is  a  thoroughbred ;  whereas,  you  two  left  to  your- 
selves will  never  get  beyond  the  A  B  C  of  love.  But  you  are 
in  love  with  her,  and  just  now  you  might  not  perhaps  share 
my  views  on  this  subject. 

''A  pleasant  time  to  you,  my  children,"  added  Ronquerolles, 
after  a  pause.  Then  with  a  laugh :  "I  have  decided  myself 
for  facile  beauties ;  they  are  tender,  at  any  rate,  the  natural 
woman  appears  in  their  love  without  any  of  your  social  season- 
ings. A  woman  that  haggles  over  herself,  my  poor  boy,  and 
only  means  to  inspire  love  !  Well,  have  her  like  an  extra 
horse — for  show.  The  match  between  the  lounge  and  con- 
fessional, black  and  white,  queen  and  knight,  conscientious 
scruples  and  pleasure,  is  an  uncommonly  amusing  game  of 
chess.  And  if  a  man  knows  the  game,  let  him  be  never  so 
little  of  a  rake,  he  wins  in  three  moves.  Now,  if  I  undertook 
a  woman  of  that  sort,  I  should  start  with  the  deliberate  pur- 
pose of "  His  voice  sank  to  a  whisper  over  the  last  words 

in  Armand's  ear,  and  he  went  before  there  was  time  for  any 
reply. 

As  for  Montriveau,  he  sprang  at  a  bound  across  the  court- 
yard of  the  Hdtel  de  Langeais,  went  unannounced  up  the 
stairs  straight  to  the  duchess'  bedroom. 

"This  is  an  unheard-of  thing,"  she  said,  hastily  wrapping 
her  dressing-gown  about  her.  "Armand  !  this  is  abominable 
of  you  !  Come,  leave  the  room,  I  beg.  Just  go  out  of  the 
room,  and  go  at  once.  Wait  for  me  in  the  drawing-room. 
Come,  now !  " 


234  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Dear  angel,  has  a  plighted  lover  no  privilege  whatso- 
ever ? ' ' 

"  But,  monsieur,  it  is  in  the  worst  possible  taste  of  a 
plighted  lover  or  a  wedded  husband  to  break  in  like  this  upon 
his  wife." 

He  came  up  to  the  duchess,  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  held 
her  tightly  to  him. 

"  Forgive,  dear  Antoinette ;  but  a  host  of  horrid  doubts  are 
fermenting  in  my  heart." 

"Doubts  ?    Fie  !     Oh,  fie  on  you  !  " 

"  Doubts  all  but  justified.  If  you  loved  me,  would  you 
make  this  quarrel?  Would  you  not  be  glad  to  see  me? 
Would  you  not  have  felt  a  something  stir  in  your  heart?  For 
I,  that  am  not  a  woman,  feel  a  thrill  in  my  inmost  self  at  the 
mere  sound  of  your  voice.  Often  in  a  ballroom  a  longing 
has  come  upon  me  to  spring  to  your  side  and  put  my  arms 
about  your  neck." 

'•  Oh  !  if  you  have  doubts  of  me  so  long  as  I  am  not  ready 
to  spring  to  your  arms  before  all  the  world,  I  shall  be  doubted 
all  my  life  long,  I  suppose.  Why,  Othello  was  a  mere  child 
compared  with  you  !  " 

"Ah  !  "  he  cried  despairingly,  "  you  have  no  love  for  me, 
you " 

"Admit,  at  any  rate,  that  at  this  moment  you  are  not  lov- 
able." 

"  Then  I  have  still  to  find  favor  in  your  sight?  " 

"  Oh,  I  should  think  so.  Come,"  added  she,  with  a  little 
imperious  air,  "  go  out  of  the  room,  leave  me.  I  am  not  like 
you ;  I  wish  always  to  find  favor  in  your  eyes." 

Never  woman  better  understood  the  art  of  putting  charm 
into  insolence,  and  does  not  the  charm  double  the  effect?  is 
it  not  enough  to  infuriate  the  coolest  of  men  ?  There  was  a 
sort  of  untrammeled  freedom  about  Mme.  de  Langeais;  a 
something  in  her  eyes,  her  voice,  her  attitude,  which  is  never 
seen  in  a  woman  who  loves  when  she  stands  face  to  face  with 


THE    THIRTEEN.  285 

him  at  the  mere  sight  of  whom  her  heart  must  needs  begin  to 
beat.  The  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles'  counsels  had  cured 
Armand  of  sheepishness ;  and  further,  there  came  to  his  aid 
that  rapid  power  of  intuition  which  passion  will  develop  at 
moments  in  the  least  wise  among  mortals,  while  a  great  man 
at  such  a  time  possesses  it  to  the  full.  He  guessed  the  terrible 
truth  revealed  by  the  duchess'  nonchalance,  and  his  heart 
swelled  with  the  storm  like  a  lake  rising  in  flood. 

"If  you  told  me  the  truth  yesterday,  be  mine,  dear  Antoi- 
nette," he  cried  ;  "  you  shall " 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  she  composedly,  thrusting  him 
back  as  he  came  nearer — "in  the  first  place,  you  are  not  to 
compromise  me.  My  woman  might  overhear  you.  Respect 
me,  I  beg  of  you.  Your  familiarity  is  all  very  well  in  my 
boudoir  in  an  evening  ;  here  it  is  quite  different.  Beside, 
what  may  your  •  you  shall '  mean  ?  '  You  shall.'  No  one  as 
yet  has  ever  used  that  word  to  me.  It  is  quite  ridiculous,  it 
seems  to  me,  absolutely  ridiculous." 

"Will  you  surrender  nothing  to  me  on  this  point?" 

"  Oh  !  do  you  call  a  woman's  right  to  dispose  of  herself  a 
'  point?  '  A  capital  point,  indeed  ;  you  will  permit  me  to  be 
entirely  my  own  mistress  on  that  'point.' ' 

"And  how  if,  believing  in  your  promises  to  me,  I  should 
absolutely  require  it  ?  " 

"  Oh!  then  you  would  prove  that  I  made  the  greatest  pos- 
sible mistake  when  I  made  you  a  promise  of  any  kind  ;  and  I 
should  beg  you  to  leave  me  in  peace." 

The  general's  face  grew  white ;  he  was  about  to  spring  to 
her  side,  when  Mme.  de  Langeais  rang  the  bell,  the  maid  ap- 
peared, and,  smiling  with  a  mocking  grace,  the  duchess  added  : 
"Be  so  good  as  to  return  when  I  am  visible." 

Then  Montriveau  felt  the  hardness  of  a  woman  as  cold  and 
keen  as  a  steel  blade;  she  was  crushing  in  her  scorn.  In  one 
moment  she  had  snapped  the  bonds  which  held  firm  only  for 
her  lover.  She  had  read  Armand's  intention  in  his  face,  and 


236  THE    THIRTEEN. 

held  that  the  moment  had  come  for  teaching  the  Imperial 
soldier  his  lesson.  He  was  to  be  made  to  feel  that  though 
duchesses  may  lend  themselves  to  love,  they  do  not  give  them- 
selves, and  that  the  conquest  of  one  of  them  would  prove  a 
harder  matter  than  the  conquest  of  Europe. 

"  Madame,"  returned  Armand,  "  I  have  not  time  to  wait. 
I  am  a  spoilt  child,  as  you  told  me  yourself.  When  I  seriously 
resolve  to  have  that  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  I  shall 
have  it." 

"You  will  have  it?"  queried  she,  and  there  was  a  trace  of 
surprise  in  her  loftiness. 

"I  shall  have  it." 

"Oh  I  you  will  do  me  a  great  pleasure  by  'resolving'  to 
have  it.  For  curiosity's  sake,  I  should  be  delighted  to  know 
how  you  would  set  about  it " 

"I  am  delighted  to  put  a  new  interest  into  your  life,"  in- 
terrupted Montriveau,  breaking  into  a  laugh  which  dismayed 
the  duchess.  "Will  you  permit  me  to  take  you  to  the  ball 
to-night?  " 

"A  thousand  thanks.  Monsieur  de  Marsay  has  been  be- 
forehand with  you.  I  gave  him  my  promise." 

Montriveau  bowed  gravely  and  went. 

"So  Ronquerolles  was  right,"  thought  he,  "and  now  for  a 
game  of  chess." 

Thenceforward  he  hid  his  agitation  by  complete  composure. 
No  man  is  strong  enough  to  bear  such  sudden  alternations 
from  the  height  of  happiness  to  the  depths  of  wretchedness. 
So  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  happy  life  the  better  to  feel  the 
emptiness  of  his  previous  existence?  There  was  a  terrible 
storm  within  him  ;  but  he  had  learned  to  endure,  and  bore 
the  shock  of  tumultuous  thoughts  as  a  granite  cliff  stands  out 
against  the  surge  of  an  angry  sea. 

"  I  could  say  nothing.  When  I  am  with  her  my  wits  desert 
me.  She  does  not  know  how  vile  and  contemptible  she  is. 
Nobody  has  ventured  to  bring  her  face  to  face  with  herself. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  237 

She  has  played  with  many  a  man,  no  doubt ;  I  will  avenge 
them  all." 

For  the  first  time,  it  may  be,  in  a  man's  heart,  revenge  and 
love  were  blended  so  equally  that  Montriveau  himself  could 
not  know  whether  love  or  revenge  would  carry  all  before  it. 
That  very  evening  he  went  to  the  ball  at  which  he  was  sure  of 
seeing  the  Durhesse  de  Langeais,  and  almost  despaired  of 
reaching  her  heart.  He  inclined  to  think  that  there  was  some- 
thing diabolical  about  this  woman,  who  was  gracious  to  him 
and  radiant  with  charming  smiles;  probably  because  she  had 
no  wisli  to  allow  the  world  to  think  that  she  had  compromised 
herself  with  M.  de  Montriveau.  Coolness  on  both  sides  is  a 
sign  of  love  ;  but  so  long  as  the  duchess  was  the  same  as  ever, 
while  the  marquis  looked  sullen  and  morose,  was  it  not  plain 
that  she  had  conceded  nothing?  Onlookers  know  the  rejected 
lover  by  various  signs  and  tokens  ;  they  never  mistake  the 
genuine  symptoms  for  u  coolness  such  as  some  women  com- 
mand their  adorers  to  feign,  in  the  hope  of  concealing  their 
love.  Every  one  laughed  at  Montriveau ;  and  he,  having 
omitted  to  consult  his  cornae*  was  abstracted  and  ill  at  ease. 
M.  do  Ronquerolles  would  very  likely  have  bidden  him  com- 
promise the  duchess  by  responding  to  her  show  of  friendliness 
by  passionate  demonstrations ;  but  as  it  was,  Armand  de 
Montriveau  came  away  from  the  ball,  loathing  human  nature, 
and  even  then  scarcely  ready  to  believe  in  such  complete 
depravity. 

"If  there  is  no  executioner  for  such  crimes,"  he  said,  as 
he  looked  up  at  the  lighted  windows  of  the  ballroom  where 
the  most  enchanting  women  in  Paris  were  dancing,  laughing, 
and  chatting,  •'!  will  take  you  by  the  nape  of  the  neck, 
Madame  hi  Duchesse,  and  make  you  feel  something  that  bites 
more  deeply  than  the  knife  in  the  Place  de  la  Greve.  Steel 
against  steel ;  we  shall  see  which  heart  will  leave  the  deeper 
mark." 

*  T-it:  Elephant  driver — oracle. 


238  THE    THIRTEEN. 

For  a  week  or  so  Mme.  de  Langeais  hoped  to  see  the  Mar- 
quis de  Montriveau  again  ;  but  he  contented  himself  with 
sending  his  card  every  morning  to  the  Hotel  de  Langeais. 
The  duchess  could  not  help  shuddering  each  time  that  the 
card  was  brought  in,  and  a  dim  foreboding  crossed  her  mind, 
but  the  thought  was  vague  as  a  presentiment  of  disaster. 
When  her  eyes  fell  on  the  name,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  felt 
the  touch  of  the  implacable  man's  strong  hand  in  her  hair ; 
sometimes  the  words  seemed  like  a  prognostication  of  a  ven- 
geance which  her  lively  intellect  invented  in  the  most  shock- 
ing forms.  She  had  studied  him  too  well  not  to  dread  him. 
Would  he  murder  her,  she  wondered  ?  Would  that  bull- 
necked  man  dash  out  her  vitals  by  flinging  her  over  his  head  ? 
Would  he  trample  her  body  under  his  feet  ?  When,  where, 
and  how  would  he  get  her  into  his  power?  Would  he  make 
her  suffer  very  much,  and  what  kind  of  pain  would  he  inflict  ? 
She  repented  of  her  conduct.  There  were  hours  when,  if  he 
had  come,  she  would  have  gone  to  his  arms  in  complete  self- 
surrender. 

Every  night  before  she  slept  she  saw  Montriveau's  face ; 
every  night  it  wore  a  different  aspect.  Sometimes  she  saw  his 
bitter  smile,  sometimes  the  Jovelike  knitting  of  the  brows  ; 
or  his  leonine  look,  or  some  disdainful  movement  of  the 
shoulders,  made  him  terrible  for  her.  Next  day  the  card 
seemed  stained  with  blood.  The  name  of  Montriveau  stirred 
her  now  as  the  presence  of  the  fiery,  stubborn,  exacting  lover 
had  never  done.  Her  apprehensions  gathered  strength  in  the 
silence.  She  was  forced,  without  aid  from  without,  to  face 
the  thought  of  a  hideous  duel  of  which  she  could  not  speak. 
Her  proud  hard  nature  was  more  responsive  to  thrills  of  hate 
than  it  had  ever  been  to  the  caresses  of  love.  Ah  !  if  the 
general  could  but  have  seen  her,  as  she  sat  with  her  forehead 
drawn  into  folds  between  her  brows ;  immersed  in  bitter 
thoughts  in  that  boudoir  where  he  had  enjoyed  such  happy 
moments,  he  might  perhaps  have  conceived  high  hopes.  Of 


THE    THIRTEEN.  'J39 

all  human  passions,  is  not  pride  alone  incapable  of  engender- 
ing anything  base?  Mme.  de  Langeais  kept  her  thoughts  to 
herself,  but  is  it  not  permissible  to  suppose  that  M.  de  Mon- 
triveau  was  no  longer  indifferent  to  her?  And  has  not  a  man 
gained  ground  immensely  when  a  woman  thinks  about  him? 
He  is  bound  to  make  progress  with  her  either  one  way  or  the 
other  afterward. 

Put  any  feminine  creature  under  the  feet  of  a  furious  horse 
or  other  fearsome  beast ;  she  will  certainly  drop  on  her  knees 
and  look  for  death  ;  but  if  the  brute  shows  a  milder  mood 
and  does  not  utterly  slay  her,  she  will  love  the  horse,  lion, 
bull,  or  what  not,  and  will  speak  of  him  quite  at  her  ease. 
The  duchess  felt  that  she  was  under  the  lion's  paws  ;  she 
quaked,  but  she  did  not  hate  him. 

The  man  and  woman  thus  singularly  placed  with  regard  to 
each  other  met  three  times  in  society  during  the  course  of 
that  week.  Each  time,  in  reply  to  coquettish  questioning 
glances,  the  duchess  received  a  respectful  bow,  and  smiles 
tinged  with  such  savage  irony,  that  all  her  apprehensions  over 
the  card  in  the  morning  were  revived  at  night.  Our  lives  are 
simply  such  as  our  feelings  shape  them  for  us  ;  and  the  feelings 
of  these  two  had  hollowed  out  a  great  gulf  between  them. 

The  Comtesse  de  Serizy,  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles' 
sister,  gave  a  great  ball  at  the  beginning  of  the  following 
week,  and  Mme.  de  Langeais  was  sure  to  go  to  it.  Armand 
was  the  first  person  whom  the  duchess  saw  when  she  came  into 
the  room,  and  this  time  Armand  wa?  looking  out  for  her,  or  so 
she  thought  at  least.  The  two  exchanged  a  look,  and  suddenly 
the  woman  felt  a  cold  perspiration  break  from  every  pore. 
She  had  thought  all  along  that  Montriveau  was  capable  of 
taking  reprisals  in  some  unheard-of  way  proportioned  to  their 
condition  ;  and  now  the  revenge  had  been  discovered,  it  was 
ready,  heated,  and  boiling.  Lightnings  flashed  from  the  foiled 
lover's  eyes,  his  fare  was  radiant  with  exultant  vengeancr. 
And  the  duchess?  Her  eves  were  haggard  in  spite  of  hr- 


240  THE    THIRTEEN. 

resolution  to  be  cool  and  insolent.  She  went  to  take  her 
place  beside  the  Comtesse  de  Serizy,  who  could  not  help  ex- 
claiming: "  Dear  Antoinette  !  what  is  the  matter  with  you? 
You  are  enough  to  frighten  one." 

"  I  shall  be  all  right  after  a  quadrille,"  she  answered,  giving 
a  hand  to  a  young  man  who  came  up  at  that  moment. 

Mme.  de  Langeais  waltzed  that  evening  with  a  sort  of  excite- 
ment and  transport  which  redoubled  Montriveau's  lowering 
looks.  He  stood  in  front  of  the  line  of  spectators,  who  were 
amusing  themselves  by  looking  on.  Every  time  that  the 
duchess  came  past  him,  his  eyes  darted  down  upon  her  eddy- 
ing face ;  he  might  have  been  a  tiger  with  the  prey  in  his 
grasp.  The  waltz  came  to  an  end,  Mme.  de  Langeais  went 
back  to  her  place  beside  the  countess,  and  the  Marquis  de 
Montriveau  never  took  his  eyes  off  her,  talking  all  the  while 
with  a  stranger. 

"  One  of  the  things  that  struck  me  most  on  the  journey,"  he 
was  saying  (and  the  duchess  listened  with  all  her  ears),  "was 
the  remark  which  the  man  makes  at  Westminster  when  you 
are  shown  the  axe  with  which  a  man  in  a  mask  cut  off  Charles 
the  First's  head,  so  they  tell  you.  The  King  made  it  first  of 
all  to  some  inquisitive  person,  and  they  repeat  it  still  in 
memory  of  him." 

"What  does  the  man  say?"  asked  Mme.  de  Serizy. 

"  '  Do  not  touch  the  axe  !  '  "  replied  Montriveau,  and  there 
was  menace  in  the  sound  of  his  voice. 

"Really,  my  lord  marquis,"  said  Mme.  de  Langeais,  "you 
tell  this  old  story  that  everybody  knows  if  they  have  been  to 
London,  and  look  at  my  neck  in  such  a  melodramatic  way 
that  you  seem  to  me  to  have  an  axe  in  your  hand." 

The  duchess  was  in  a  cold  sweat,  but  nevertheless  she 
laughed  as  she  spoke  the  last  words. 

"  But  circumstances  give  the  story  a  quite  new  application," 
returned  he. 

"  How  so ;  pray  tell  me,  for  pity's  sake?  " 


THE    THIRTEEN.  241 

"In  this  way,  madame — you  have  touched  the  axe,"  said 
Montriveau,  lowering  his  voice. 

"What  an  enchanting  prophecy!"  returned  she,  smiling 
with  assumed  grace.  "And  when  is  my  head  to  fall?" 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  see  that  pretty  head  of  yours  cut  off.  I 
only  fear  some  great  misfortune  for  you.  If  your  head  were 
clipped  close,  would  you  feel  no  regrets  for  the  dainty  golden 
hair  that  you  turn  to  such  good  account  ?  " 

"  There  are  those  for  whom  a  woman  would  love  to  make 
such  a  sacrifice  ;  even  if,  as  often  happens,  it  is  for  the  sake 
of  a  man  who  cannot  make  allowances  for  an  outbreak  of 
temper." 

"Quite  so.  Well,  and  if  some  wag  were  to  spoil  your 
beauty  on  a  sudden  by  some  chemical  process,  and  you,  who 
are  but  eighteen  for  us,  were  to  be  a  hundred  years  old  ?  " 

"Why,  the  small-pox  is  our  battle  of  Waterloo,  monsieur," 
she  interrupted.  "  After  it  is  over  we  find  out  those  who  love 
us  sincerely." 

"  Would  you  not  regret  the  lovely  face  that ?" 

"Oh  !  indeed  I  should,  but  less  for  my  own  sake  than  for 
the  sake  of  some  one  else  whose  delight  it  might  have  been. 
And,  after  all,  if  I  were  loved,  always  loved,  and  truly  loved, 
what  would  my  beauty  matter  to  me?  What  do  you  say, 
Clara?" 

"  It  is  a  dangerous  speculation,"  replied  Mme.  de  Serizy. 

"  Is  it  permissible  to  ask  his  majesty  the  King  of  Sorcerers 
when  I  made  the  mistake  of  touching  the  axe,  since  I  have 
not  been  to  London  as  yet  ? " 

"Not  so,"  he  answered  in  English,  with  a  burst  of  ironical 
laughter. 

"  And  when  will  the  punishment  begin  ?  " 

At  this  Montriveau  coolly  took  out  his  watch,  and  ascer- 
tained the  hour  with  a  truly  appalling  air  of  conviction. 

"A  dreadful  misfortune  will  befall  you  before  this  day  is 
out." 

16 


242  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  I  am  not  a  child  to  be  easily  frightened,  or  rather,  I  am  a 
child  ignorant  of  danger,"  said  the  duchess.  "  I  shall  dance 
now  without  fear  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice." 

"  I  am  delighted  to  know  that  you  have  so  much  strength 
of  character,"  he  answered,  as  he  watched  her  go  to  take  her 
place  in  a  square  dance. 

But  the  duchess,  in  spite  of  her  apparent  contempt  for 
Armand's  dark  prophecies,  was  really  frightened.  Her  late 
lover's  presence  weighed  upon  her  morally  and  physically 
with  a  sense  of  oppression  that  scarcely  ceased  when  he  left 
the  ballroom.  And  yet  when  she  had  drawn  freer  breath, 
and  enjoyed  the  relief  for  a  moment,  she  found  herself  regret- 
ting the  sensation  of  dread,  so  greedy  of  extreme  sensations  is 
the  feminine  nature.  The  regret  was  not  love,  but  it  was 
certainly  akin  to  other  feelings  which  prepare  the  way  for 
love.  And  then — as  if  the  impression  which  Montriveau  had 
made  upon  her  were  suddenly  revived — she  recollected  his  air 
of  conviction  as  he  took  out  his  watch,  and  in  a  sudden  spasm 
of  dread  she  went  out. 

By  this  time  it  was  about  midnight.  One  of  her  servants, 
waiting  with  her  pelisse,  went  down  to  order  her  carriage. 
On  her  way  home  she  fell  naturally  enough  to  musing  over  M. 
de  Montriveau's  prediction.  Arrived  in  her  own  courtyard, 
as  she  supposed,  she  entered  a  vestibule  almost  like  that  of  her 
own  hotel,  and  suddenly  saw  that  the  staircase  was  different. 
She  was  in  a  strange  house.  Turning  to  call  her  servants,  she 
was  attacked  by  several  men,  who  rapidly  flung  a  handkerchief 
over  her  mouth,  bound  her  hand  and  foot,  and  carried  her  off. 
She  shrieked  aloud. 

"Madame,  our  orders  are  to  kill  you  if  you  scream,"  a 
voice  said  in  her  ear. 

So  great  was  the  duchess'  terror  that  she  could  never  recollect 
how  nor  by  whom  she  was  transported.  When  she  came  to 
herself  she  was  lying  on  a  couch  in  a  bachelor's  lodging,  her 
hands  and  feet  tied  with  silken  cords.  In  spite  of  herself,  she 


11/E    THIRTEEN.  243 

shrieked  aloud  as  she  looked  round  and  met  Armand  de  Mon- 
triveau's  eyes.  He  was  sitting  in  his  dressing-gown,  quietly 
smoking  a  cigar  in  his  armchair. 

"Do  not  cry  out,  Madame  la  Dtiehesse,"  he  said,  coolly 
taking  the  cigar  out  of  his  mouth  ;  "  I  have  a  headache.  Be- 
side, I  will  untie  you.  But  listen  attentively  to  what  I  have 
the  honor  to  say  to  you." 

Very  carefully  he  untied  the  knots  that  bound  her  feet. 

"  What  would  he  the  use  of  calling  out  ?  Nobody  can  hear 
your  cries.  You  arc  too  well  bred  to  make  any  unnecessary 
fuss.  If  you  do  not  stay  quietly,  if  you  insist  upon  a  struggle 
with  me,  I  shall  tie  your  hands  and  feet  again.  All  things 
considered,  I  think  that  you  have  self-respect  enough  to  stay 
on  this  couch  as  if  you  were  lying  on  your  own  at  home ;  cold 
as  ever,  if  you  will.  You  have  made  me  shed  many  tears  on 
this  couch,  tears  that  I  hid  from  all  other  eyes." 

While  Montriveau  was  speaking,  the  duchess  glanced  about 
her ;  it  was  a  woman's  glance,  a  stolen  look  that  saw  all  things 
and  seemed  to  see  nothing.  She  was  much  pleased  with  the 
room.  It  was  rather  like  a  monk's  cell.  The  man's  character 
and  thoughts  seemed  to  pervade  it.  No  decoration  of  any 
kind  broke  the  gray  painted  surface  of  the  walls.  A  green 
carpet  covered  the  floor.  A  black  sofa,  a  table  littered  with 
papers,  two  big  easy-chairs,  a  chest  of  drawers  with  an  alarum 
clock  by  way  of  ornament,  a  very  low  bedstead  with  a  coverlet 
flung  over  it — a  red  cloth  with  a  black  key  border — all  these 
things  made  part  of  a  whole  that  told  of  a  life  reduced  to  its 
simplest  terms.  A  triple  candle-sconce  of  Egyptian  design  on 
the  mantel  recalled  the  vast  spaces  of  the  desert  and  Mon- 
triveau's  long  wanderings ;  a  huge  sphinx-claw  stood  out  be- 
neath the  folds  of  stuff  at  the  bedfoot ;  and,  just  beyond,  a 
green  curtain  with  a  black  and  scarlet  border  was  suspended 
by  large  rings  from  a  spear  handle  above  the  door  near  one 
corner  of  the  room.  The  other  door  by  which  the  band  had 
entered  was  likewise  curtained,  but  the  drapery  hung  from  an 


244  THE    THIRTEEN. 

ordinary  curtain-rod.  As  the  duchess  finally  noted  that  the 
pattern  was  the  same  on  both,  she  saw  that  the  door  at  the 
bedfoot  stood  open  ;  gleams  of  ruddy  light  from  the  room 
beyond  flickered  below  the  fringed  border.  Naturally,  the 
ominous  light  roused  her  curiosity;  she  fancied  she  could  dis- 
tinguish strange  shapes  in  the  shadows  ;  but  as  it  did  not  occur 
to  her  at  the  time  that  danger  could  come  from  that  quarter, 
she  tried  to  gratify  a  more  ardent  curiosity. 

"  Monsieur,  if  it  is  not  indiscreet,  may  I  ask  what  you 
mean  to  do  with  me  ?  "  The  insolence  and  irony  of  the  tone 
stung  through  the  words.  The  duchess  quite  believed  that 
she  read  extravagant  love  in  Montriveau's  speech.  He  had 
carried  her  off;  was  not  that  in  itself  an  acknowledgment  of 
her  power  ? 

"Nothing  whatever,  madame,"  he  returned,  gracefully 
puffing  the  last  whiff  of  cigar  smoke.  "  You  will  remain  here 
for  a  short  time.  First  of  all,  I  should  like  to  explain  to  you 
what  you  are,  and  what  I  am.  I  cannot  put  my  thoughts  into 
words  whilst  you  are  twisting  on  the  couch  in  your  boudoir; 
and,  beside,  in  your  own  house  you  take  offense  at  the  slightest 
hint,  you  ring  the  bell,  make  an  outcry,  and  turn  your  lover 
out  at  the  door  as  if  he  were  the  basest  of  wretches.  Here  my 
mind  is  unfettered.  Here  nobody  can  turn  me  out.  Here 
you  shall  be  my  victim  for  a  few  seconds,  and  you  are  going 
to  be  so  exceedingly  kind  as  to  listen  to  me.  You  need  fear 
nothing.  I  did  not  carry  you  off  to  insult  you,  nor  yet  to 
take  by  force  what  you  refused  to  grant  of  your  own  will  to 
my  unworthiness.  I  could  not  stoop  so  low.  You  possibly 
think  of  outrage  ;  for  myself,  I  have  no  such  thoughts." 

He  flung  his  cigar  coolly  into  the  fire. 

"The  smoke  is  unpleasant  to  you,  no  doubt,  madame?" 
he  said,  and  rising  at  once,  he  took  a  chafing-dish  from  the 
hearth,  burnt  perfumes,  and  purified  the  air.  The  duchess' 
astonishment  was  only  equaled  by  her  humiliation.  She  was 
in  this  man's  power ;  and  he  would  not  abuse  his  power.  The 


THE    THIRTEEN.  246 

eyes  in  which  love  had  once  blazed  like  flame  were  now  quiet 
and  steady  as  stars.  She  trembled.  Her  dread  of  Armand 
was  increased  by  a  nightmare  sensation  of  restlessness  and 
utter  inability  to  move ;  she  felt  as  if  she  were  turned  to 
stone.  She  lay  passive  in  the  grip  of  fear.  She  thought  she 
saw  the  light  behind  the  curtains  grow  to  a  blaze,  as  if  blown 
up  by  a  pair  of  bellows ;  in  another  moment  the  gleams  of 
flame  grew  brighter,  and  she  fancied  that  three  masked  figures 
suddenly  flashed  out ;  but  the  terrible  vision  disappeared  so 
swiftly  that  she  took  it  for  an  optical  delusion. 

"Madame,"  Armand  continued  with  cold  contempt,  "one 
minute,  just  one  minute  is  enough  for  me,  and  you  shall  feel 
it  afterward  at  every  moment  throughout  your  lifetime,  the 
one  eternity  over  which  I  have  power.  I  am  not  God.  Listen 
carefully  to  me,"  he  continued,  pausing  to  add  solemnity  to 
his  words.  "  Love  will  always  come  at  your  call.  You  have 
boundless  power  over  men  :  but  remember  that  once  you 
called  love,  and  love  came  to  you ;  love  as  pure  and  true- 
hearted  as  may  be  on  earth,  and  as  reverent  as  it  was  passion- 
ate ;  fond  as  a  devoted  woman's,  as  a  mother's  love ;  a  love  so 
great,  indeed,  that  it  was  past  the  bounds  of  reason.  You 
played  with  it,  and  you  committed  a  crime.  Every  woman 
has  a  right  to  refuse  herself  to  love  which  she  feels  she  can- 
not share ;  and  if  a  man  loves  and  cannot  win  love  in  return, 
he  is  not  to  be  pitied,  he  has  no  right  to  complain.  But  with 
a  semblance  of  love  to  attract  an  unfortunate  creature  cut  off 
from  all  affection  ;  to  teach  him  to  understand  happiness  to 
the  full,  only  to  snatch  it  from  him  ;  to  rob  him  of  his  future 
of  felicity  ;  to  slay  his  happiness  not  merely  to-day,  but  as 
long  as  his  life  lasts,  by  poisoning  every  hour  of  it  and  every 
thought — this  I  call  a  fearful  crime  !  " 

"  Monsieur " 

"  I  cannot  allow  you  to  answer  me  yet.  So  listen  to  me 
still.  In  any  case  I  have  rights  over  you  ;  but  I  only  choose 
to  exercise  one — the  right  of  the  judge  over  the  criminal,  so 


246  THE    THIRTEEN. 

that  I  may  arouse  your  conscience.  If  you  had  no  conscience 
left,  I  should  not  reproach  you  at  all ;  but  you  are  so  young ! 
You  must  feel  some  life  still  in  your  heart ;  or  so  I  like  to  be- 
lieve. While  I  think  of  you  as  depraved  enough  to  do  a 
wrong  which  the  law  does  not  punish,  I  do  not  think  you  so 
degraded  that  you  cannot  comprehend  the  full  meaning  of  my 
words.  I  resume." 

As  he  spoke  the  duchess  heard  the  smothered  sound  of  a 
pair  of  bellows.  Those  mysterious  figures  which  she  had  just 
seen  were  blowing  up  the  fire,  no  doubt ;  the  glow  shone 
through  the  curtain.  But  Montriveau's  lurid  face  was  turned 
upon  her ;  she  could  not  choose  but  wait  with  a  fast-beating 
heart  and  eyes  fixed  in  a  stare.  However  curious  she  felt,  the 
heat  in  Armand's  words  interested  her  even  more  than  the 
crackling  of  the  mysterious  flames. 

"Madame,"  he  went  on  after  a  pause,  "if  some  poor 
wretch  commits  a  murder  in  Paris,  it  is  the  executioner's 
duty,  you  know,  to  lay  hands  on  him  and  stretch  him  on  the 
plank,  where  murderers  pay  for  their  crimes  with  their  heads. 
Then  the  newspapers  inform  every  one,  rich  and  poor,  so  that 
the  former  are  assured  that  they  may  sleep  in  peace,  and  the 
latter  are  warned  that  they  must  be  on  the  watch  if  they  would 
live.  Well,  you  that  are  religious,  and  even  2.  little  of  a  bigot, 
may  have  masses  said  for  such  a  man's  soul.  You  both  belong 
to  the  same  family,  but  yours  is  the  elder  branch  ;  and  the 
elder  branch  may  occupy  high  places  in  peace  and  live  hap- 
pily and  without  cares.  Want  or  anger  may  drive  your  brother 
the  convict  to  take  a  man's  life;  you  have  taken  more,  you 
have  taken  the  joy  out  of  a  man's  life,  you  have  killed  all 
that  was  best  in  his  life — his  dearest  beliefs.  The  murderer 
simply  lay  in  wait  for  his  victim,  and  killed  him  reluctantly, 

and  in  fear  of  the  scaffold  ;  but  you !  You  heaped  up 

every  sin  that  weakness  can  commit  against  strength  that  sus- 
pected no  evil ;  you  tamed  a  passive  victim,  the  better  to  gnaw 
his  heart  out ;  you  lured  him  with  caresses;  you  left  nothing 


TOE    THIRTEEN.  247 

undone  that  could  set  him  dreaming,  imagining,  longing  fur 
the  bliss  of  love.  You  asked  innumerable  sacrifices  of  him, 
only  to  refuse  to  make  any  in  return.  He  should  see  the 
light  indeed  before  you  put  out  his  eyes !  It  is  wonderful 
how  you  found  the  heart  to  do  it  !  Such  villainies  demand  a 
display  of  resource  quite  above  the  comprehension  of  those 
bourgeoises  whom  you  laugh  at  and  despise.  They  can  give 
and  forgive  ;  they  know  how  to  love  and  suffer.  The  grandeur 
of  their  devotion  dwarfs  us.  Rising  higher  in  the  social  scale, 
one  finds  just  as  much  mud  as  at  the  lower  end  ;  but  with  this 
difference,  at  the  upper  end  it  is  hard  and  gilded  over. 

"  Yes,  to  find  baseness  in  perfection,  you  must  look  for  a 
noble  bringing  up,  a  great  name,  a  fair  woman,  a  duchess. 
You  cannot  fall  lower  than  the  lowest  unless  you  arc  set  high 
above  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  express  my  thoughts  badly ; 
the  wounds  you  dealt  me  are  too  painful  as  yet,  but  do  not 
think  that  I  complain.  My  words  are  not  the  expression  of 
any  hope  for  myself;  there  is  no  trace  of  bitterness  in  them. 
Know  this,  madame,  for  a  certainty — I  forgive  you.  My  for- 
giveness is  so  complete  that  you  need  not  feel  in  the  least 
sorry  that  you  came  hither  to  find  it  against  your  will.  But 
you  might  take  advantage  of  other  hearts  as  childlike  as  my 
own,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  spare  them  anguish.  So  you  have 
inspired  the  thought  of  justice.  Expiate  your  sin  here  on 
earth  ;  God  may  perhaps  forgive  you ;  I  wish  that  He  may,  but 
He  is  inexorable,  and  will  strike." 

The  broken-spirited,  broken-hearted  woman  looked  up,  her 
eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"  Why  do  you  cry?  Be  true  to  your  nature.  You  could 
look  on  indifferently  at  the  torture  of  a  heart  as  you  broke  it. 
That  will  do,  madame,  do  not  cry.  I  cannot  bear  it  any 
longer.  Other  men  will  tell  you  that  you  have  given  them 
life;  as  for  myself,  I  tell  you,  with  rapture,  that  you  have 
given  me  blank  extinction.  Perhaps  you  guess  that  I  am  not 
my  own,  that  I  am  bound  to  live  for  my  friends,  that  from 


248  THE    THIRTEEN. 

this  time  forth  I  must  endure  the  cold  chill  of  death,  as  well  as 
the  burden  of  life  ?  Is  it  possible  that  there  can  be  so  much 
kindness  in  you  ?  Are  you  like  the  desert  tigress  that  licks 
the  wounds  she  has  inflicted?" 

The  duchess  burst  out  sobbing. 

"  Pray  spare  your  tears,  madame.  If  I  believed  in  them  at 
all,  it  would  merely  set  me  on  my  guard.  Is  this  another  of 
your  artifices?  or  is  it  not?  You  have  used  so  many  with 
me;  how  can  one  think  that  there  is  any  truth  in  you? 
Nothing  that  you  do  or  say  has  any  power  now  to  move  me. 
That  is  all  I  have  to  say." 

Mme.  de  Langeais  rose  to  her  feet,  with  a  great  dignity 
and  humility  in  her  bearing. 

"You  are  right  to  treat  me  very  hardly,"  she  said,  holding 
out  a  hand  to  the  man  who  did  not  take  it;  "  you  have  not 
spoken  harshly  enough;  and  I  deserve  this  punishment." 

"/punish  you,  madame  !  A  man  must  love  still,  to  punish, 
must  he  not  ?  From  me  you  must  expect  no  feeling,  nothing 
resembling  it.  If  I  chose,  I  might  be  accuser  and  judge  in 
my  cause,  and  pronounce  and  carry  out  the  sentence.  But  I 
am  about  to  fulfill  a  duty,  not  a  desire  of  vengeance  of  any 
kind.  The  crudest  revenge  of  all,  I  think,  is  scorn  of  re- 
venge when  it  is  in  our  power  to  take  it.  Perhaps  I  shall  be 
the  minister  of  your  pleasures;  who  knows?  Perhaps  from 
this  time  forth,  as  you  gracefully  wear  the  tokens  of  disgrace, 
by  which  society  marks  out  the  criminal,  you  may  perforce 
learn  something  of  the  convict's  sense  of  honor.  And  then, 
you  will  love  !  " 

The  duchess  sat  listening  ;  her  meekness  was  unfeigned  ;  it 
was  no  coquettish  device.  When  she  spoke  at  last,  it  was 
after  a  silence. 

"  Armand,"  she  began,  "it  seems  to  me  that  when  I  re- 
sisted love,  I  was  obeying  all  the  chaste  instincts  of  woman's 
modesty ;  I  should  not  have  looked  for  such  reproaches  from 
you.  I  was  weak ;  you  have  turned  all  my  weaknesses  against 


THE    THIRTEEN.  240 

me,  and  made  so  many  crimes  of  them.  How  could  you  fail 
to  understand  that  the  curiosity  of  love  might  have  carried 
me  further  than  I  ought  to  go ;  and  that  next  morning  I 
might  be  angry  with  myself,  and  wretched  because  I  had  gone 
too  far?  Alas!  I  sinned  in  ignorance.  I  was  as  sincere  in 
my  wrongdoing,  I  swear  to  you,  as  in  my  remorse.  There 
was  far  more  love  for  you  in  my  severity  than  in  my  conces- 
sions. And  beside,  of  what  do  you  complain  ?  I  gave  you 
my  heart ;  that  was  not  enough ;  you  demanded,  brutally, 
that  I  should  give  my  person " 

"  Brutally  ?  ' '  repeated  Montriveau.  But  to  himself  he  said, 
"  If  I  once  allow  her  to  dispute  over  words,  I  am  lost." 

"  Yes.  You  came  to  me  as  if  I  were  one  of  those  women. 
You  showed  none  of  the  respect,  none  of  the  attentions  of  love. 
Had  I  not  reason  to  reflect?  Very  well,  I  reflected.  The 
unseemliness  of  your  conduct  is  not  inexcusable,  love  lay  at 
the  source  of  it ;  let  me  think  so,  and  justify  you  to  myself. 
Well,  Armand,  this  evening,  even  while  you  were  prophesying 
evil,  I  felt  convinced  that  there  was  happiness  in  store  for  us 
both.  Yes,  I  put  my  faith  in  the  noble,  proud  nature  so  often 
tested  and  proved."  She  bent  lower.  "And  I  was  yours 
wholly,"  she  murmured  in  his  ear.  "  I  felt  a  longing  that  I 
cannot  express  to  give  happiness  to  a  man  so  violently  tried  by 
adversity.  If  I  must  have  a  master,  my  master  should  be  a 
great  man.  As  I  felt  conscious  of  my  height,  the  less  I  cared 
to  descend.  I  felt  I  could  trust  you,  I  saw  a  whole  lifetime 
of  love,  while  you  were  pointing  to  death.  Strength  and 
kindness  always  go  together.  My  friend,  you  are  so  strong, 
you  will  not  be  unkind  to  a  helpless  woman  who  loves  you. 
If  I  was  wrong,  is  there  noway  of  obtaining  forgiveness?  No 
way  of  making  reparation  ?  Repentance  is  the  charm  of  love  ; 
I  should  like  to  be  very  charming  for  you.  How  could  I, 
alone  among  women,  fail  to  know  a  woman's  doubts  and  fears, 
the  timidity  that  it  is  so  natural  to  feel  when  you  bind  your- 
self for  life,  and  know  how  easily  a  man  snaps  such  ties  ?  The 


260  THE    THIRTEEN. 

bourgeoises,  with  whom  you  compared  me  just  now,  give 
themselves,  but  they  struggle  first.  Very  well — I  struggled  ; 
but  here  I  am  !  Ah  !  God,  he  does  not  hear  me  !  "  she  broke 
off,  and  wringing  her  hands,  she  cried  out :  "  But  I  love  you  ! 
I  am  yours  !  "  and  fell  at  Armand's  feet. 

"  Yours !  yours  !   my  one  and  only  master  !  " 

Armand  tried  to  raise  her. 

"Madame,  it  is  too  late!  Antoinette  cannot  save  the 
Duchesse  de  Langeais.  I  cannot  believe  in  either.  To-day 
you  may  give  yourself;  to-morrow  you  may  refuse.  No 
power  in  earth  or  heaven  can  insure  me  the  sweet  constancy 
of  love.  All  love's  pledges  lay  in  the  past ;  and  now  nothing 
of  that  past  exists." 

The  light  behind  the  curtain  blazed  up  so  brightly  that  the 
duchess  could  not  help  turning  her  head ;  this  time  she  dis- 
tinctly saw  the  three  masked  figures. 

"  Armand,"  she  said,  '•'  I  would  not  wish  to  think  ill  of  you. 
Why  are  those  men  there  ?  What  are  you  going  to  do  to 
me?" 

"  Those  men  will  be  as  silent  as  I  myself  with  regard  to  the 
thing  which  is  about  to  be  done.  Think  of  them  simply  as 
my  hands  and  my  heart.  One  of  them  is  a  surgeon " 

"A  surgeon  !  Armand,  my  friend,  of  all  things,  suspense 
is  the  hardest  to  bear.  Just  speak ;  tell  me  if  you  wish  for 
my  life;  I  will  give  it  to  you,  you  need  not  take  it " 

"  Then  you  did  not  understand  me?  Did  I  not  speak  just 
now  of  justice?  To  put  an  end  to  your  misapprehensions," 
continued  he,  taking  up  a  small  steel  object  from  the  table, 
"  I  will  now  explain  what  I  have  decided  with  regard  to  you." 

He  held  out  a  Lorraine  cross,  fastened  to  the  tip  of  a  steel 
rod. 

"Two  of  my  friends  at  this  very  moment  are  heating  an- 
other cross,  made  on  this  pattern,  red-hot.  We  are  going  to 
stamp  it  upon  your  forehead,  here  between  the  eyes,  so  that 
there  will  be  no  possibility  of  hiding  the  mark  with  diamonds, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  ->: 

and  so  avoiding  people's  questions.  In  short,  you  shall  bear 
on  your  forehead  the  brand  of  infamy  which  your  brothers 
the  convicts  wear  on  their  shoulders.  The  pain  is  a  mere  trifle, 
but  I  feared  a  nervous  crisis  of  some  kind,  of  resistance — 

"Resistance?"  she  cried,  clapping  her  hands  for  joy. 
"  Oil  no,  no !  I  would  have  the  whole  world  here  to  sec. 
Ah,  my  Armand,  brand  her  quickly,  this  creature  of  yours  ; 
brand  her  with  your  mark  as  a  poor  trifle  belonging  to  you. 
You  asked  for  pledges  of  my  love  ;  here  they  arc  all  in  one.  Ah  ! 
for  me  there  is  nothing  but  mercy  and  forgiveness  and  eternal 
happiness  in  this  revenge  of  yours.  When  you  have  marked 
this  woman  with  your  mark,  when  you  set  your  crimson  brand 
on  her,  your  slave  in  soul,  you  can  never  afterward  abandon 
her,  you  will  be  mine  for  evermore  !  When  you  cut  me  off 
from  my  kind,  you  make  yourself  responsible  for  my  happiness, 
or  you  prove  yourself  base ;  and  I  know  that  you  are  noble 
and  great  !  Why,  when  a  woman  loves,  the  brand  of  love  is 
burnt  into  her  soul  by  her  own  will.  Come  in,  gentlemen  ! 
come  in  and  brand  her,  this  Duchesse  de  Langeais.  She  is 
Monsieur  de  Montriveau's  for  ever  !  Ah  !  come  quickly,  all 
of  you,  my  forehead  burns  hotter  than  your  fire  !  " 

Armand  turned  his  head  sharply  away  lest  he  should  see  the 
duchess  kneeling,  quivering  with  the  throbbings  of  her  heart. 
He  said  some  word,  and  his  three  friends  vanished. 

The  women  of  Paris  salons  know  how  one  mirror  reflects 
another.  The  duchess,  with  every  motive  for  reading  the 
depths  of  Armand's  heart,  was  all  eyes  ;  and  Armand,  all 
unsuspicious  of  the  mirror,  brushed  away  two  tears  as  they 
fell.  Her  whole  future  lay  in  those  two  tears.  When  he 
turned  round  again  to  help  her  to  rise,  she  was  standing  before 
him,  sure  of  love.  Her  pulses  must  have  throbbed  fast  when 
he  spoke  with  the  firmness  she  had  known  so  well  how  to  use 
of  old  while  she  played  with  him. 

"  I  spare  you,  madame.  All  that  has  taken  place  shall  be 
as  if  it  had  never  been,  you  may  believe  me.  But  now,  let 


252  THE    THIRTEEN. 

us  bid  each  other  farewell.  I  like  to  think  that  you  were 
sincere  in  you  coquetries  on  your  couch,  sincere  again  in  this 
outpouring  of  your  heart.  Adieu.  I  feel  that  there  is  no 
faith  in  you  left  in  me.  You  would  torment  me  again  ;  you 

would  always  be  the  duchess,  and But  there,  farewell, 

we  shall  never  understand  each  other. 

"Now,  what  do  you  wish?"  he  continued,  taking  the  tone 
of  a  master  of  the  ceremonies — "  to  return  home  or  to  go 
back  to  Madame  de  Serizy's  ball?  I  have  done  all  in  my 
power  to  prevent  any  scandal.  Neither  your  servants  nor  any 
one  else  can  possibly  know  what  has  passed  between  us  in  the 
last  quarter  of  an  hour.  Your  servants  have  no  idea  that  you 
have  left  the  ballroom ;  your  carriage  never  left  Madame  de 
Serizy's  courtyard ;  your  carriage  may  likewise  be  found 
in  the  court  of  your  own  hotel.  Where  do  you  wish  to 
be?" 

"  What  do  you  counsel,  Armand  ?  " 

"  There  is  no  Armand  now,  Madame  la  Duchesse.  We  are 
strangers  to  each  other." 

"Then  take  me  to  the  .ball,"  she  said,  still  curious  to  put 
Armand's  power  to  the  test.  "  Thrust  a  soul  that  suffered  in 
the  world,  and  must  always  suffer  there,  if  there  is  no  happi- 
ness for  her  now,  down  into  hell  again.  And  yet,  oh  my 
friend,  I  love  you  as  your  bourgeoises  love;  I  love  you  so 
that  I  could  come  to  you  and  fling  my  arms  about  your  neck 
before  all  the  world  if  you  asked  it  of  me.  The  hateful 
world  has  not  corrupted  me.  I  am  young  at  least,  and  I  have 
grown  younger  still.  I  am  a  child,  yes,  your  child,  your  new 
creature.  Ah  !  do  not  drive  me  forth  out  of  my  Eden  !  " 

Armand  shook  his  head. 

"Ah  !  let  me  take  something  with  me,  if  I  go,  some  little 
thing  to  wear  to-night  on  my  heart,"  she  said,  taking  pos- 
session of  Armand's  glove,  which  she  twisted  into  her  hand- 
kerchief. 

"  No,  I  am  not  like  all  those  depraved  women.     You  do 


THE    THIRTEEN.  253 

not  know  the  world,  and  so  you  cannot  know  my  worth. 
You  shall  know  it  now !  There  are  women  who  sell  them- 
selves for  money;  there  are  others  to  be  gained  by  gifts,  it  is 
a  vile  world  !  Oh,  I  wish  I  were  a  simple  bourgeoise,  a  work- 
ing-girl, if  you  would  rather  have  a  woman  beneath  you  than 
a  woman  whose  devotion  is  accompanied  by  high  rank,  as 
men  count  it.  Oh,  my  Armand,  there  are  noble,  high,  and 
chaste  and  pure  natures  among  us ;  and  then  they  are  lovely 
indeed.  I  would  have  all  nobleness  that  I  might  offer  it  all 
up  to  you.  Misfortune  willed  that  I  should  be  a  duchess ;  I 
would  I  were  a  royal  princess,  that  my  offering  might  be  com- 
plete. I  would  be  a  grisette  for  you,  and  a  queen  for  every 
one  beside." 

He  listened,  damping  his  cigarettes  with  his  lips. 

"  You  will  let  me  know  when  you  wish  to  go,"  he  said. 

"But  I  should  like  to  stay " 

"That  is  another  matter  !  " 

"  Stay,  that  was  badly  rolled,"  she  cried,  seizing  on  a  cigar- 
ette and  grasping  all  that  Armand's  lips  had  touched. 

"  Do  you  smoke  ?  " 

"  Oh,  what  would  I  not  do  to  please  you  ?  " 

"Very  well.     Go,  madame." 

"  I  will  obey  you,"  she  answered,  with  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"  You  must  be  blindfolded  ;  you  must  not  see  a  glimpse  of 
the  way." 

"  I  am  ready,  Armand,"  she  said,  bandaging  her  eyes. 

"Can  you  see?" 

"  No." 

Noiselessly  he  knelt  before  her. 

•'  Ah  !  I  can  hear  you  !  "  she  cried,  with  a  little  fond  ges- 
ture, thinking  that  the  pretense  of  harshness  was  over. 

He  made  as  if  he  would  kiss  her  lips  ;  she  held  up  her 
face. 

"You  can  see,  madame." 

"  I  am  just  a  little  bit  curious." 


254  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  So  you  always  deceive  me  ?  " 

"Ah  !  take  off  this  handkerchief,  sir,"  she  cried  out,  with 
the  passion  of  a  great  generosity  repelled  with  scorn,  "lead 
me  ;  I  will  not  open  my  eyes." 

Armand  felt  sure  of  her  after  that  cry.  He  led  the  way ; 
the  duchess,  nobly  true  to  her  word,  was  blind.  But  while 
Montriveau  held  her  hand  as  a  father  might,  and  led  her  up 
and  down  flights  of  stairs,  he  was  studying  the  throbbing 
pulses  of  this  woman's  heart  so  suddenly  invaded  by  Love. 
Mme.  de  Langeais,  rejoicing  in  this  power  of  speech,  was  glad 
to  let  him  know  all ;  but  he  was  inflexible ;  his  hand  was  pas- 
sive in  reply  to  the  questionings  of  her  hand. 

At  length,  after  some  journey  made  together,  Armand  bade 
her  go  forward ;  the  opening  was  doubtless  narrow,  for  as  she 
went  she  felt  that  his  hand  protected  her  dress.  His  care 
touched  her;  it  was  a  revelation  surely  that  there  was  a  little 
love  still  left ;  yet  it  was  in  some  sort  a  farewell,  for  Montri- 
veau left  her  without  a  word.  The  air  was  warm  ;  the  duchess, 
feeling  the  heat,  opened  her  eyes,  and  found  herself  standing 
by  the  fire  in  the  Comtesse  de  Serizy's  boudoir.  She  was 
alone.  Her  first  thought  was  for  her  disordered  toilette ;  in 
a  moment  she  had  adjusted  her  dress  and  restored  her  pictur- 
esque coiffure. 

"  Well,  dear  Antoinette,  we  have  been  looking  for  you 
everywhere."  It  was  the  Comtesse  de  Serizy  who  spoke  as 
she  opened  the  door. 

"I  came  here  to  breathe,"  said  the  duchess;  "it  is  un- 
bearably hot  in  the  rooms." 

"People  thought  that  you  had  gone  ;  but  my  brother  Ron- 
querolles  told  me  that  your  servants  were  waiting  for  you." 

"  I  am  tired  out,  dear,  let  me  stay  and  rest  here  for  a  min- 
ute," and  the  duchess  sat  down  on  the  sofa. 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  you  ?  You  are  shaking 
from  head  to  foot !  " 

The  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles  came  in. 


THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse,  I  was  afraid  that  something  might 
have  happened.  I  have  just  come  across  your  coachman,  the 
man  is  as  tipsy  as  all  the  Swiss  in  the  whole  of  the  twenty- 
two  cantons." 

The  duchess  made  no  answer ;  she  was  looking  round  the 
room,  at  the  mantel  and  the  tall  mirrors,  seeking  the  trace  of 
an  opening.  Then  with  an  extraordinary  sensation  she  recol- 
lected that  she  was  again  in  the  midst  of  the  gayety  of  the 
ballroom  after  that  terrific  scene  which  had  changed  the  whole 
course  of  her  life.  She  began  to  shiver  violently. 

"  Monsieur  de  Montriveau's  prophecy  has  shaken  my 
nerves,"  she  said.  "  It  was  a  joke,  but  still  I  will  see  whether 
his  axe  from  London  will  haunt  me  even  in  my  sleep.  So 
farewell,  dear.  Adieu,  Monsieur  le  Marquis." 

As  she  went  through  the  rooms  she  was  beset  with  inquiries 
and  regrets.  Her  world  seemed  to  have  dwindled  now  that 
she,  its  queen,  had  fallen  so  low,  was  so  diminished.  And 
what,  moreover,  were  these  men  compared  with  him  whom 
she  loved  with  all  her  heart ;  with  the  man  grown  great  by  all 
that  she  had  lost  in  stature?  The  giant  had  regained  the 
height  that  he  had  lost  for  a  while,  and  she  exaggerated  it  per- 
haps beyond  measure.  She  looked,  in  spite  of  herself,  at  the 
servant  who  had  attended  her  to  the  ball.  He  was  fast  asleep. 

"  Have  you  been  here  all  the  time?  "  she  asked. 

"Yes,  madame." 

As  she  took  her  seat  in  her  carriage  she  saw,  in  fact,  that 
her  coachman  was  drunk — so  drunk,  that  at  any  other  time 
she  would  have  been  afraid  ;  but  after  a  great  crisis  in  life,  fear 
loses  its  appetite  for  common  food.  She  reached  home,  at 
any  rate,  without  accident;  but  even  there  she  felt  a  change 
in  herself,  a  new  feeling  that  she  could  not  shake  off.  For 
her,  there  was  now  but  one  man  in  the  world  ;  which  is  to  say, 
that  henceforth  she  cared  to  shine  for  his  sake  alone. 

While  the  philosopher  can  define  love  promptly  by  follow- 
ing out  natural  laws,  the  moralist  finds  a  far  more  perplexing 


256  THE    THIRTEEN. 

problem  before  him  if  he  attempts  to  consider  love  in  all  its 
developments  due  to  social  conditions.  Still,  in  spite  of  the 
heresies  of  the  endless  sects  that  divide  the  church  of  Love, 
there  is  one  broad  and  trenchant  line  of  difference  in  doc- 
trine, a  line  that  all  the  discussion  in  the  world  can  never  de- 
flect. A  rigid  application  of  this  line  explains  the  nature  of 
the  crisis  through  which  the  duchess,  like  most  women,  was  to 
pass.  Passion  she  knew,  but  she  did  not  love  as  yet. 

Love  and  passion  are  two  different  conditions  which  poets 
and  men  of  the  world;  philosophers  and  fools  alike,  continu- 
ally confound.  Love  implies  a  give  and  take,  a  certainty  of 
bliss  that  nothing  can  change ;  it  means  so  close  a  clinging  of 
the  heart,  and  an  exchange  of  happiness  so  constant,  that  there 
is  no  room  left  for  jealousy.  Then  possession  is  a  means  and 
not  an  end ;  unfaithfulness  may  give  pain,  but  the  bond  is 
not  the  less  close ;  the  soul  is  neither  more  nor  less  ardent  or 
troubled,  but  happy  at  every  moment ;  in  short,  the  divine 
breath  of  desire  spreading  from  end  to  end  of  the  immensity 
of  Time  steeps  it  all  for  us  in  the  selfsame  hue ;  life  takes  the 
tint  of  the  unclouded  heaven.  But  Passion  is  the  foreshadow- 
ing of  Love,  and  of  that  Infinite  to  which  all  suffering  souls 
aspire.  Passion  is  a  hope  that  may  be  cheated.  Passion 
means  both  suffering  and  transition.  Passion  dies  out  when 
hope  is  dead.  Men  and  women  may  pass  through  this  expe- 
rience many  times  without  dishonor,  for  it  is  so  natural  to 
spring  toward  happiness ;  but  there  is  only  one  love  in  a  life- 
time. All  discussions  of  sentiment  ever  conducted  on  paper 
or  by  word  of  mouth  may,  therefore,  be  resumed  by  two  ques- 
tions— "Is  it  passion?  Is  it  love  ?"  So,  since  love  comes 
into  existence  only  through  the  intimate  experience  of  the 
bliss  which  gives  it  lasting  life,  the  duchess  was  beneath  the 
yoke  of  passion  as  yet ;  and  as  she  knew  the  fierce  tumult,  the 
unconscious  calculations,  the  fevered  cravings,  and  all  that  is 
meant  by  that  word  passion — she  suffered.  Through  all  the 
trouble  of  her  soul  there  rose  eddying  gusts  of  tempest,  raised 


THE    THIRTEEN.  2S7 

by  vanity  or  self-love,  or  pride  or  a  high  spirit ;  tor  all  these 
forms  of  egoism  make  common  cause  together. 

She  had  said  to  this  man  :  "  I  love  you  ;  I  am  yours  !  "  Was 
it  possible  that  the  Duchessc  dc  Langeais  should  have  uttered 
those  words — in  vain  ?  She  must  either  be  loved  now  or  play 
her  part  of  queen  no  longer.  And  then  she  felt  the  loneliness 
of  the  luxurious  couch  where  pleasure  had  never  yet  set  his 
glowing  feet  ;  and  over  and  over  again,  while  she  tossed  and 
writhed  there,  she  said  :  '•  I  want  to  be  loved." 

But  the  belief  that  she  still  had  in  herself  gave  her  hope  of 
success.  The  duchess  might  be  piqued,  the  vain  Parisienne 
might  be  humiliated  ;  but  the  woman  saw  glimpses  of  wedded 
happiness,  and  imagination,  avenging  the  time  lost  for  nature, 
took  a  delight  in  kindling  the  inextinguishable  fire  in  her 
veins.  She  all  but  attained  to  the  sensations  of  love  ;  for  amid 
her  poignant  doubt  whether  she  was  loved  in  return,  she  felt 
glad  at  heart  to  say  to  herself:  "  I  love  him  !  "  As  for  her 
scruples,  religion,  and  the  world,  she  could  trample  them  under 
foot !  Montriveau  was  her  religion  now.  She  spent  the  next 
day  in  a  state  of  moral  torpor,  troubled  by  a  physical  unrest, 
which  no  words  could  express.  She  wrote  letters  and  tore 
them  all  up  in  turn,  and  invented  a  thousand  and  one  impos- 
sible fancies. 

When  M.  de  Montriveau's  usual  hour  arrived,  she  tried  to 
think  that  he  would  come,  and  enjoyed  the  feeling  of  expecta- 
tion. Her  whole  life  was  concentrated  in  the  single  sense  of 
hearing.  Sometimes  she  shut  her  eyes,  straining  her  ears  to 
listen  through  space,  wishing  that  she  could  annihilate  every- 
thing that  lay  between  her  and  her  lover,  and  s"  establish  that 
perfect  silence  which  sounds  may  traverse  from  afar.  In  her 
tense  self-concentration,  the  ticking  of  the  clock  grew  hateful 
to  her ;  she  stopped  its  ill-omened  garrulity.  The  twelve  strokes 
of  midnight  sounded  from  the  drawing-room. 

"  Ah,  God  !  "  she  cried,  "  to  see  him  here  would  be  happi- 
ness.    And  yet,  it   is  not  so  very  long  since  he  came  here, 
17 


258  THE    THIRTEEN. 

brought  by  desire,  and  the  tones  of  his  voice  filled  this  bou- 
doir. And  now  there  is  nothing." 

She  remembered  the  times  that  she  had  played  the  coquette 
with  him,  and  how  that  her  coquetry  had  cost  her  her  lover, 
and  the  despairing  tears  flowed  for  long. 

Her  woman  came  at  length  with,  "Madame  la  Duchesse 
does  not  know,  perhaps,  that  it  is  two  o'clock  in  the  morning ; 
I  thought  that  madame  was  not  feeling  well." 

'•'Yes,  I  am  going  to  bed,"  said  the  duchess,  drying  her 
eyes.  "  But  remember,  Suzanne,  never  to  come  in  again  with- 
out orders;  I  tell  you  this  for  the  last  time." 

For  a  week,  Mine,  de  Langeais  went  to  every  house  where 
there  was  a  hope  of  meeting  M.  de  Montriveau.  Contrary  to 
her  usual  habits,  she  came  early  and  went  late ;  gave  up  dan- 
cing, and  went  to  the  card-tables.  Her  experiments  were  fruit- 
less. She  did  not  succeed  in  getting  a  glimpse  of  Armand. 
She  did  not  dare  to  utter  his  name  now.  One  evening,  how- 
ever, in  a  fit  of  despair,  she  spoke  to  Mme.  de  Serizy,  and 
asked  as  carelessly  as  she  could:  "You  must  have  quarreled 
with  Monsieur  de  Montriveau  ?  He  is  not  to  be  seen  at  your 
house  now." 

The  countess  laughed.  "  So  he  does  not  come  here  either?" 
she  returned.  "  He  is  not  to  be  seen  anywhere,  for  that  mat- 
ter. He  is  interested  in  some  woman,  no  doubt." 

"I  used  to  think  that  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles  was  one 
of  his  friends "  the  duchess  began  sweetly. 

"  I  have  never  heard  my  brother  say  that  he  was  acquainted 
with  him." 

Mme.  de  Langeais  did  not  reply.  Mme.  de  Serizy  con- 
cluded from  the  duchess'  silence  that  she  might  apply  the 
scourge  with  impunity  to  a  discreet  friendship  which  she  had 
all  too  plainly  seen,  with  much  bitterness  of  soul,  for  a  long 
time  past. 

"So  you  miss  that  melancholy  personage,  do  you?  I  have 
heard  most  extraordinary  things  of  him.  Wound  his  feelings, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  25'J 

he  never  comes  back,  he  forgives  nothing ;  and,  if  you  love 
him,  he  keeps  you  in  chains.  To  everything  that  I  said  of 
him,  one  of  those  that  praise  him  sky-high  would  always 
answer:  '  He  knows  how  to  love  !  '  People  arc  always  tell- 
ing me  that  Montrivcau  would  give  up  all  for  his  friend  ;  that 
his  is  a  great  nature.  Pooh  !  society  does  not  want  such 
tremendous  natures.  Men  of  that  stamp  are  all  very  well  at 
home ;  let  them  stay  there  and  leave  us  to  our  pleasant  little- 
nesses. What  do  you  say,  Antoinette?" 

Woman  of  the  world  though  she  was,  the  duchess  seemed 
agitated,  yet  she  replied  in  a  natural  voice  that  deceived  her 
fair  friend : 

"  I  am  sorry  to  miss  him.  I  took  a  great  interest  in  him, 
and  promised  to  myself  to  be  his  sincere  friend.  I  like  great 
natures,  dear  friend,  ridiculous  though  you  may  think  it.  To 
give  one's  self  to  a  fool  is  a  clear  confession,  is  it  not,  that  one 
is  governed  wholly  by  one's  senses  ?  " 

Mme.  de  Serizy's  "preferences"  had  always  been  for 
commonplace  men  ;  her  lover  at  the  moment,  the  Marquis 
d'Aiglemont,  was  a  fine,  tall  man. 

After  this,  the  countess  soon  took  her  departure,  you  may 
be  sure.  Mme.  de  Langeais  saw  hope  in  Armand's  with- 
drawal from  the  world ;  she  wrote  to  him  at  once ;  it  was  a 
humble,  gentle  letter,  surely  it  would  bring  him  if  he  loved 
her  still.  She  sent  her  footman  with  it  next  day.  On  the 
servant's  return,  she  asked  whether  he  had  given  the  letter  to 
M.  de  Montriveau  himself,  and  could  not  restrain  the  move- 
ment of  joy  at  the  affirmative  answer.  Armand  was  in  Paris  ! 
He  stayed  alone  in  his  house  ;  he  did  not  go  out  into  society  ! 
So  she  was  loved  !  All  day  long  she  waited  for  an  answer 
that  never  came.  Again  and  again,  when  impatience  grew 
unbearable,  Antoinette  found  reasons  for  his  delay.  Armand 
felt  embarrassed  ;  the  reply  would  come  by  mail ;  but  night 
came,  and  she  could  not  deceive  herself  any  longer.  It  was 
a  dreadful  day,  a  day  of  pain  grown  sweet,  of  intolerable  heart- 


260  THE    THIRTEEN. 

throbs,  a  day  when  the  heart  squanders  the  very  forces  of  life 
in  riot. 

Next  day  she  sent  for  an  answer. 

"  Monsieur  le  Marquis  sent  word  that  he  would  call  on 
Madame  la  Duchesse,"  reported  Julien. 

She  fled  lest  her  happiness  should  be  seen  in  her  face,  and 
flung  herself  on  her  couch  to  devour  her  first  sensations. 

"  He  is  coming  !  " 

The  thought  rent  her  soul.  And,  in  truth,  woe  unto  those 
for  whom  suspense  is  not  the  most  horrible  time  of  tempest, 
while  it  increases  and  multiplies  the  sweetest  joys ;  for  they 
have  nothing  in  them  of  that  flame  which  quickens  the  images 
of  things,  giving  to  them  a  second  existence,  so  that  we  cling 
as  closely  to  the  pure  essence  as  to  its  outward  and  visible 
manifestation.  What  is  suspense  in  love  but  a  constant  draw- 
ing upon  an  unfailing  hope? — a  submission  to  the  terrible 
scourgings  of  passion,  while  passion  is  yet  happy,  and  the  dis- 
enchantment of  reality  has  not  set  in.  The  constant  putting 
forth  of  strength  and  longing,  called  suspense,  is  surely,  to  the 
human  soul,  as  fragrance  to  the  flower  that  breathes  it  forth. 
We  soon  leave  the  brilliant,  unsatisfying  colors  of  tulips  and 
coreopsis,  but  we  turn  again  and  again  to  drink  in  the  sweet- 
ness of  orange-blossoms  or  volkameria — flowers  compared 
separately,  each  in  its  own  land,  to  a  betrothed  bride,  full  of 
love,  made  fair  by  the  past  and  future. 

The  duchess  learned  the  joys  of  this  new  life  of  hers  through 
the  rapture  with  which  she  received  the  scourgings  of  love. 
As  this  change  wrought  in  her,  she  saw  other  destinies  before 
her,  and  a  better  meaning  in  the  things  of  life.  As  she  hur- 
ried to  her  dressing-room,  she  understood  what  studied  adorn- 
ment and  the  most  minute  attention  to  her  toilet  mean  when 
these  are  undertaken  for  love's  sake  and  not  for  vanity.  Even 
now  this  making  ready  helped  her  to  bear  the  long  time  of 
waiting.  A  relapse  of  intense  agitation  set  in  when  she  was 
dressed ;  she  passed^  through  nervous  paroxysms  brought  on 


THE    THIRTEEN.  261 

by  the  dreadful  power  which  sets  the  whole  mind  in  ferment. 
Perhaps  that  power  is  only  a  disease,  though  the  pain  of  it  is 
sweet.  The  duchess  was  dressed  and  waiting  at  two  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon.  At  half-post  eleven  that  night  M.  de  Mon- 
triveau  had  not  arrived.  To  try  to  give  an  idea  of  the  anguish 
endured  by  a  woman  who  might  be  said  to  be  the  spoilt  child 
of  civilization  would  be  to  attempt  to  say  how  many  imagin- 
ings the  heart  can  condense  into  one  thought.  As  well  en- 
deavor to  measure  the  forces  expended  by  the  soul  in  a  sigh 
whenever  the  bell  rang;  to  estimate  the  drain  of  life  when  a 
carriage  rolled  past  without  stopping,  and  left  her  prostrate. 

"Can  he  be  playing  with  me?"  she  said,  as  the  clock 
struck  midnight. 

She  grew  white  ;  her  teeth  chattered  ;  she  struck  her  hands 
together  and  leapt  up  and  crossed  the  boudoir,  recollecting  as 
she  did  so  how  often  he  had  come  thither  without  a  summons. 
But  she  resigned  herself.  Had  she  not  seen  him  grow  pale, 
and  start  up  under  the  stinging  barbs  of  her  irony?  Then 
Mme.  de  Langeais  felt  the  horror  of  the  woman's  appointed 
lot ;  a  man's  is  the  active  part,  a  woman  must  wait  passively 
when  she  loves.  If  a  woman  goes  beyond  her  beloved,  she 
makes  a  mistake  which  few  men  can  forgive  ;  ?'most  every 
man  would  feel  that  a  woman  lowers  herself  by  this  piece  of 
angelic  flattery.  But  Armand's  was  a  great  nature ;  he  surely 
must  be  one  of  the  very  few  who  can  repay  such  exceeding 
love  by  love  that  lasts  for  ever. 

"Well,  I  will  make  the  advance,"  she  told  herself,  as  she 
tossed  on  her  bed  and  found  no  sleep  there;  "I  will  go  to 
him.  I  will  not  weary  myself  with  holding  out  a  hand  to 
him,  but  I  will  hold  it  out.  A  man  of  a  thousand  will  see  a 
promise  of  love  and  constancy  in  every  step  that  a  woman 
takes  toward  him.  Yes,  the  angels  must  come  down  from 
heaven  to  reach  men  ;  and  I  wish  to  be  an  angel  for  him." 

Next  day  she  wrote.  It  was  a  billet  of  the  kind  in  which 
the  intellects  of  the  ten  thousand  Sevignes  that  Paris  now  can 


262  THE    THIRTEEN. 

number  particularly  excel.  And  yet  only  a  Duchesse  de 
Langeais,  brought  up  by  Mme.  la  Princcsse  de  Blamont- 
Chauvry,  could  have  written  that  delicious  note;  no  other 
woman  could  complain  without  lowering  herself;  could  spread 
wings  in  such  a  flight  without  draggling  her  pinions  in  humili- 
ation ;  rise  gracefully  in  revolt;  scold  without  giving  offense; 
and  pardon  without  compromising  her  personal  dignity. 

Julien  went  with  the  note.  Julien,  like  his  kind,  was  the 
victim  of  love's  marches  and  countermarches. 

"What  did  Monsieur  de  Montriveau  reply?"  she  asked,  as 
indifferently  as  she  could,  when  the  man  came  back  to  report 
himself. 

"Monsieur  le  Marquis  requested  me  to  tell  Madame  la 
Duchesse  that  it  was  all  right." 

Oh  the  dreadful  reaction  of  the  soul  upon  herself!  To  have 
her  heart  stretched  on  the  rack  before  curious  witnesses ;  yet 
not  to  utter  a  sound,  to  be  forced  to  keep  silence  !  One  of 
the  countless  miseries  of  the  rich  ! 

More  than  three  weeks  went  by.  Mme.  de  Langeais  wrote 
again  and  again,  and  no  answer  came  from  Montriveau.  At 
last  she  gave  out  that  she  was  ill,  to  gain  a  dispensation  from 
attendance  on  the  princess  and  from  social  duties.  She  was 
only  at  home  to  her  father  the  Due  de  Navarreins,  her  aunt 
the  Princesse  de  Blamont-Chauvry,  the  old  Vidame  de  Pamiers 
(her  maternal  great-uncle),  and  to  her  husband's  uncle,  the 
Due  de  Grandlieu.  These  persons  found  no  difficulty  in  be- 
lieving that  the  duchess  was  ill,  seeing  that  she  grew  thinner 
and  paler  and  more  dejected  every  day.  The  vague  ardor  of 
love,  the  smart  of  wounded  pride,  the  continual  prick  of  the 
only  scorn  that  could  touch  her.  the  yearnings  toward  joys  that 
she  craved  with  a  rain  continual  longing — all  these  things  told 
updn  her,  mind  and  body ;  all  the  forces  of  her  nature  were 
stimulated  to  no  purpose.  She  was  paying  the  arrears  of  her 
life  of  make-believe. 

She  went  out  at  last  to  a  review.     M.  de  Montriveau  was  to 


THE    THIRTEEN.  283 

be  there.  For  the  duchess,  on  the  balcony  of  the  Tuileries 
with  the  royal  family,  it  was  one  of  those  festival  days  that 
are  long  remembered.  She  looked  supremely  beautiful  in  her 
languor;  she  was  greeted  with  admiration  in  all  eyes.  It  was 
Montriveau's  presence  that  made  her  so  fair.  Once  or  twice 
they  exchanged  glances.  The  general  came  almost  to  her 
feet  in  all  the  glory  of  that  soldier's  uniform,  which  produces 
an  effect  upon  the  feminine  imagination  to  which  the  most 
prudish  will  confess.  When  a  woman  is  very  much  in  love, 
and  has  not  seen  her  lover  for  two  months,  such  a  swift  mo- 
ment must  be  something  like  the  phase  of  a  dream  when  the 
eyes  embrace  a  world  that  stretches  away  forever.  Only 
women  or  young  men  can  imagine  the  dull,  frenzied  hunger 
in  the  duchess'  eyes.  As  for  older  men,  if  during  the  parox- 
ysms of  early  passion  in  youth  they  had  experience  of  such 
phenomena  of  nervous  power  ;  at  a  later  day  it  is  so  completely 
forgotten  that  they  deny  the  very  existence  of  the  luxuriant 
ecstasy — the  only  name  that  can  be  given  to  these  wonderful 
intuitions.  Religious  ecstasy  is  the  aberration  of  a  soul  that 
has  shaken  off  its  bonds  of  flesh  ;  whereas  in  amorous  ecstasy 
all  the  forces  of  soul  and  body  are  embraced  and  blended  in 
one.  If  a  woman  falls  a  victim  to  the  tyrannous  frenzy  before 
which  Mme.  de  Langeais  was  forced  to  bend,  she  will  take 
one  decisive  resolution  after  another  so  swifty  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  give  account  of  them.  Thought  after  thought  rises 
and  flits  across  her  brain,  as  clouds  are  whirled  by  the  wind 
across  the  gray  veil  of  mist  that  shuts  out  the  sun.  Thence- 
forth the  facts  reveal  all.  And  the  facts  are  these : 

The  day  after  the  review,  Mme.  de  Langeais  sent  her  car- 
riage and  liveried  servants  to  wait  at  the  Marquis  de  Montri- 
veau's door  from  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  till  three  in  the 
afternoon.  Armand  lived  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon,  a  few  steps 
away  from  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  and  that  very  day  the 
House  was  sitting  ;  but  long  before  the  peers  returned  to  their 
palaces,  several  people  had  recognized  the  duchess'  carriage 


264  THE    THIRTEEN. 

and  liveries.  The  first  of  these  was  the  Baron  de  Maulincour. 
That  young  officer  had  met  with  disdain  from  Mme.  de  Lan- 
geais  and  a  better  reception  from  Mme.  de  Serizy ;  he  betook 
himself  at  once  therefore  to  his  mistress,  and  under  seal  of 
secrecy  told  her  of  this  strange  freak. 

In  a  moment  the  news  was  spread  with  telegraphic  speed 
through  all  the  coteries  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain ;  it 
reached  the  Tuileries  and  the  Elysee-Bourbon ;  it  was  the  sen- 
sation of  the  day,  the  matter  of  all  the  talk  from  noon  till 
night.  Almost  everywhere  the  women  denied  the  facts,  but 
in  such  a  manner  that  the  report  was  confirmed ;  the  men  one 
and  all  believed  it,  and  manifested  a  most  indulgent  interest 
in  Mme.  de  Langeais.  Some  among  them  threw  the  blame 
on  Armand. 

"That  savage  of  a  Montriveau  is  a  man  of  bronze,"  said 
they;  "he  insisted  on  making  this  scandal,  no  doubt." 

"Very  well,  then,"  others  replied,  "  Madame  de  Langeais 
has  been  guilty  of  a  most  generous  piece  of  imprudence.  To 
renounce  the  world,  and  rank,  and  fortune,  and  consideration 
for  her  lover's  sake,  and  that  in  the  face  of  all  Paris,  is  as  fine 
a  coup  d'etat  for  a  woman  as  that  barber's  knife-thrust,  which 
so  affected  Canning  in  a  court  of  assize.  Not  one  of  the 
women  who  blame  the  duchess  would  make  a  declaration 
worthy  of  ancient  times.  It  is  heroic  of  Madame  de  Langeais 
to  proclaim  herself  so  frankly.  Now  there  is  nothing  left  to 
her  but  to  love  Montriveau.  There  must  be  something  great 
about  a  woman  if  she  says:  '  I  will  have  but  one  passion.'  ' 

"  But  what  is  to  become  of  society,  monsieur,  if  you  honor 
vice  in  this  way  without  respect  for  virtue  ?  "  asked  the  Com- 
tesse  de  Granville,  the  attorney-general's  wife. 

While  the  chateau,  the  faubourg,  and  the  Chaussee  d'Antin 
were  discussing  the  shipwreck  of  aristocratic  virtue  ;  while 
excited  young  men  rushed  about  on  horseback  to  make  sure 
that  the  carriage  was  standing  in  the  Rue  de  Tournon,  and 
the  duchess  in  consequence  was  beyond  a  doubt  in  M.  de 


THE    THIRTEEN.  265 

Montrivcau's  rooms,  Mine,  de  Langeais,  with  heavy  throbbing 
pulses,  was  lying  hidden  away  in  her  boudoir.  And  Armand  ? 
he  had  been  out  all  night,  and  at  that  moment  was  walking 
with  M.  de  Marsay  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries.  The  elder 
members  of  Mmc.  de  Langeuis'  family  were  engaged  in  calling 
upon  one  another,  arranging  to  read  her  a  homily  and  to  hold 
a  consultation  as  to  the  best  way  of  putting  a  stop  to  the 
scandal. 

At  three  o'clock,  therefore,  M.  le  Due  de  Navarrcins,  the 
Vidame  de  Pamiers,  the  old  Princesse  de  Blamont-Chauvry, 
and  the  Due  de  Grandlieu  were  assembled  in  Mine,  la  Duch- 
esse  dc  Langeais'  drawing-room.  To  them,  as  to  all  curious 
inquirers,  the  servants  said  that  their  mistress  was  not  at  home ; 
the  duchess  had  made  no  exceptions  to  her  orders.  But  these 
four  personages  shone  conspicuous  in  that  lofty  sphere,  of 
which  the  revolutions  and  hereditary  pretensions  are  solemnly 
recorded  year  by  year  in  the  "  Almanach  de  Gotha,"  where- 
fore without  some  slight  sketch  of  each  of  them  this  picture  of 
society  were  incomplete. 

The  Princesse  de  Blamont-Chauvry,  in  the  feminine  world, 
was  a  most  poetic  wreck  of  the  reign  of  Louis  Quinze.  In 
her  beautiful  prime,  so  it  was  said,  she  had  done  her  part  to 
win  for  that  monarch  his  appellation  of  le  Bien-aime  (the  well- 
beloved).  Of  her  past  charms  of  feature,  little  remained  save 
a  remarkably  prominent  slender  nose,  curved  like  a  Turkish 
scimitar,  now  the  principal  ornament  of  a  countenance  that 
put  you  in  mind  of  an  old  white  glove.  Add  a  few  powdered 
curls,  high-heeled  pantoufles,  a  cap  with  upstanding  loops  of 
lace,  black  mittens,,  and  a  decided  taste  for  ombre.  But  to  do 
full  justice  to  the  lady,  it  must  be  said  that  she  appeared  in 
low-necked  gowns  of  an  evening  (so  high  an  opinion  of  her 
ruins  had  she),  wore  long  gloves,  and  reddened  her  cheeks 
with  Martin's  classic  rouge.  An  appalling  amiability  in  her 
wrinkles,  a  prodigious  brightness  in  the  old  lady's  eyes,  a 
profound  dignity  in  her  whole  person,  together  with  the  triple 


266  THE    THIRTEEN. 

barbed  wit  of  her  tongue,  and  an  infallible  memory  in  her 
head,  made  of  her  a  real  power  in  the  land.  The  whole 
Cabinet  des  Chartes  was  entered  in  duplicate  on  the  parch- 
ment of  her  brain.  She  knew  all  the  genealogies  of  every 
noble  house  in  Europe — princes,  dukes,  and  counts — and 
could  put  her  hand  on  the  last  descendants  of  Charlemagne 
in  the  direct  line.  No  usurpation  of  title  could  escape  the 
Princesse  de  Blamont-Chauvry. 

Young  men  who  wished  to  stand  well  at  Court,  ambitious 
men,  and  young  married  women  paid  her  assiduous  homage. 
Her  salon  set  the  tone  of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  The 
words  of  this  Talleyrand  in  petticoats  were  taken  as  final  de- 
crees. People  came  to  consult  her  on  questions  of  etiquette 
or  usages,  or  to  take  lessons  in  good  taste.  And,  in  truth,  no 
other  old  woman  could  put  back  her  snuff-box  in  her  pocket 
as  the  princess  could  ;  while  there  was  a  precision  and  a  grace 
about  the  movements  of  her  skirts,  when  she  sat  down  or 
crossed  her  feet,  which  drove  the  finest  ladies  of  the  young 
generation  to  despair.  Her  voice  had  remained  in  her  head 
during  one-third  of  her  lifetime;  but  she  could  not  prevent  a 
descent  into  the  membranes  of  the  nose,  which  lent  to  it  a 
peculiar  expressiveness.  She  still  retained  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  francs  of  her  great  fortune,  for  Napoleon  had 
generously  returned  her  woods  to  her ;  so  that  personally  and 
in  the  matter  of  possessions  she  was  a  woman  of  no  little  con- 
sequence. 

This  curious  antique,  seated  in  a  low  chair  by  the  fireside, 
was  chatting  with  the  Vidame  de  Pamiers,  a  contemporary 
ruin.  The  vidame*  was  a  big,  tall,  and  spare  man,  a  lord  of 
the  old  school,  and  had  been  a  commander  of  the  order  of 
Malta.  His  neck  had  always  been  so  tightly  compressed  by  a 
strangulation  stock  that  his  cheeks  pouched  over  it  a  little, 
and  he  held  his  head  high  ;  to  many  people  this  would  have 

*  A  feudal  title  of  those  holding  the  estates  of  a  bishopric  on  condition 
of  defending  them. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  2«7 

given  an  air  of  self-sufficiency,  but  in  the  vidame  it  was  justi- 
fied by  a  Voltairean  wit.  His  wide  prominent  eyes  seemed 
to  see  everything,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  not  much 
that  they  had  not  seen.  Altogether,  his  person  was  a  perfect 
model  of  aristocratic  outline,  slim  and  slender,  supple  and 
agreeable.  He  seemed  as  if  he  could  be  pliant  or  rigid  at 
will,  and  twist  and  bend,  or  rear  his  head  like  a  snake. 

The  Due  de  Navarreins  was  pacing  up  and  down  the  room 
with  the  Dae  de  Grandlicu.  Both  were  men  of  fifty-six  or 
thereabout,  and  still  hale  ;  both  were  short,  corpulent,  flourish- 
ing, somewhat  florid-complcxioned  men  with  jaded  eyes,  and 
lower  lips  that  had  begun  to  hang  already.  But  for  an  ex- 
quisite refinement  of  accent,  an  urbane  courtesy,  and  an  ease 
of  manner  that  could  change  in  a  moment  to  insolence,  a 
superficial  observer  might  have  taken  them  for  a  couple  of 
bankers.  Any  such  mistake  would  have  been  impossible,  how- 
ever, if  the  listener  could  have  heard  them  converse,  and 
seen  them  on  their  guard  with  men  whom  they  feared,  vapid 
and  commonplace  with  their  equals,  slippery  with  their  in- 
feriors, whom  courtiers  and  statesmen  know  how  to  tame  by  a 
tactful  word  or  to  humiliate  with  an  unexpected  phrase. 

Such  were  the  representatives  of  the  great  noblesse  that 
determined  to  perish  rather  than  submit  to  any  change.  It 
was  a  noblesse  that  deserved  praise  and  blame  in  equal  mea- 
sure :  a  noblesse  that  will  never  be  judged  impartially  until 
some  poet  shall  arise  to  tell  how  joyfully  the  nobles  obeyed 
the  King  though  their  heads  fell  under  a  Richelieu's  axe.  and 
how  deeply  they  scorned  the  guillotine  of  '89  as  a  foul 
revenge. 

Another  noticeable  trait  in  all  the  four  was  a  thin  voice  that 
agreed  peculiarly  well  with  their  ideas  and  bearing.  Among 
themselves,  at  any  rate,  they  were  on  terms  of  perfect  equality. 
None  of  them  betrayed  any  sign  of  annoyance  over  the 
duchess'  escapade,  but  all  of  them  had  learned  at  Court  to 
hide  their  feelings. 


268  THE    THIRTEEN. 

And  here,  lest  critics  should  condemn  the  puerility  of  the 
opening  of  the  forthcoming  scene,  it  is  perhaps  as  well  to 
remind  the  reader  that  Locke,  once  happening  to  be  in  the 
company  of  several  great  lords,  renowned  no  less  for  their  wit 
than  for  their  breeding  and  political  consistency,  wickedly 
amused  himself  by  taking  down  their  conversation  by  some 
shorthand  process  of  his  own ;  and  afterward,  when  he  read 
it  over  to  them  to  see  what  they  could  make  of  it,  they  all 
burst  out  laughing.  And,  in  truth,  the  tinsel  jargon  which 
circulates  among  the  upper  ranks  in  every  country  yields 
mighty  little  gold  to  the  crucible  when  washed  in  the  ashes  of 
literature  or  philosophy.  In  every  rank  of  society  (some  few 
Parisian  salons  excepted)  the  curious  observer  finds  folly  a 
constant  quantity  beneath  a  more  or  less  transparent  varnish. 
Conversation  with  any  substance  in  it  is  a  rare  exception,  and 
bceotianism  is  current  coin  in  every  zone.  In  the  higher 
regions  they  must  perforce  talk  more,  but  to  make  up  for  it 
they  think  the  less.  Thinking  is  a  tiring  exercise,  and  the 
rich  like  their  lives  to  flow  by  easily  and  without  effort.  It  is 
by  comparing  the  fundamental  matter  of  jests,  as  you  rise  in 
the  social  scale  from  the  street-boy  to  the  peer  of  France, 
that  the  observer  arrives  at  a  true  comprehension  of  M.  de 
Talleyrand's  maxim:  "The  manner  is  everything;"  an 
elegant  rendering  of  the  legal  axiom:  "The  form  is  of  more 
consequence  than  the  matter."  In  the  eyes  of  the  poet  the 
advantage  rests  with  the  lower  classes,  for  they  seldom  fail  to 
give  a  certain  character  of  rude  poetry  to  their  thoughts. 
Perhaps  also  this  same  observation  may  explain  the  sterility  of 
the  salons,  their  emptiness,  their  shallowness,  and  the  repug- 
nance felt  by  men  of  ability  for  bartering  their  ideas  for  such 
pitiful  small  change. 

The  duke  suddenly  stopped  as  if  some  bright  idea  occurred 
to  him,  and  remarked  to  his  neighbor — 

"  So  you  have  sold  Tornthon  ?  " 

"  No,  he  is  ill.     I  am  very  much  afraid  I  shall   lose   him, 


THE    THIRTEEN.  209 

and  I  should  be  uncommonly  sorry.  He  is  a  very  good 
hunter.  Do  you  know  how  the  Duchesse  de  Marigny  is?" 

"  No.  I  did  not  go  this  morning.  I  was  just  going  out  to 
call  when  you  came  in  to  speak  about  Antoinette.  But  yes- 
terday she  was  very  ill  indeed  ;  they  had  given  her  up,  she 
took  the  sacrament." 

"  Her  death  will  make  a  change  in  your  cousin's  position." 

"  Not  at  all.  She  gave  away  her  property  in  her  "lifetime, 
only  keeping  an  annuity.  She  made  over  the  Guebriant  estate 
to  her  niece,  Madame  de  Soulanges,  subject  to  a  yearly 
charge." 

"  It  will  be  a  great  loss  for  society.  She  was  a  kind  woman. 
Her  family  will  miss  her ;  her  experience  and  advice  carried 
weight.  Her  son  Marigny  is  an  amiable  man  ;  he  has  a  sharp 
wit;  he  can  talk.  He  is  pleasant,  very  pleasant.  Pleasant? 
oh,  that  no  one  can  deny,  but — ill  regulated  to  the  last  degree. 
Well,  and  yet  it  is  an  extraordinary  thing,  he  is  very  acute. 
He  was  dining  at  the  club  the  other  day  with  that  moneyed 
Chaussee-d'Antin  set.  Your  uncle  (he  always  goes  there  for 
his  game  of  cards)  found  him  there  to  his  astonishment,  and 
asked  if  he  was  a  member.  ''Yes,'  said  he,  'I  don't  go  into 
society  now;  I  am  living  among  the  bankers.'  You  know 
why?"  added  the  marquis,  with  a  meaning  smile. 

"No,"  said  the  duke. 

"  He  is  smitten  with  that  little  Madame  Keller,  Gondre- 
ville's  daughter ;  she  is  only  lately  married,  and  has  a  great 
vogue,  they  say,  in  that  set." 

"Well,  Antoinette  does  not  find  time  heavy  on  her  hands, 
it  seems,"  remarked  the  vidame. 

"  My  affection  for  that  little  woman  has  driven  me  to  find 
a  singular  pastime,"  replied  the  princess,  as  she  returned  her 
snuff-box  to  her  pocket. 

"  Dear  aunt,  I  am  extremely  vexed,"  said  the  duke,  stop- 
ping short  in  his  walk.  "  Nobody  but  one  of  Bonaparte's 
men  could  ask  such  an  indecorous  thins:  of  a  woman  of 


270  THE    THIRTEEN. 

fashion.  Between  ourselves,  Antoinette  might  have  made  a 
better  choice." 

"  The  Montriveaus  are  a  very  old  family  and  very  well  con- 
nected, my  dear, ' '  replied  the  princess ;  ' '  they  are  related  to  all 
the  noblest  houses  of  Burgundy.  If  the  Dulmen  branch  of  the 
Arschoot-Rivaudoults  should  come  to  an  end  in  Galicia,  the 
Montriveaus  would  succeed  to  the  Arschoot  title  and  estates. 
They  inherit  through  their  great-grandfather." 

"Are  you  sure  ?  " 

"  I  know  it  better  than  this  Montriveau's  father  did.  I 
told  him  about  it,  I  used  to  see  a  good  deal  of  him ;  and, 
chevalier  of  several  orders  though  he  was,  he  only  laughed ; 
he  was  an  encyclopaedist.  But  his  brother  turned  the  rela- 
tionship to  good  account  during  the  emigration.  I  have  heard 
it  said  that  his  northern  kinsfolk  were  most  kind  in  every 
way " 

"Yes,  to  be  sure.  The  Comte  de  Montriveau  died  at  St. 
Petersburg,"  said  the  vidame.  "I  met  him  there.  He  was 
a  big  man  with  an  incredible  passion  for  oysters." 

"How  many  did  he  ever  eat?"  asked  the  Due  de  Grand- 
lieu. 

"Ten  dozen  every  day." 

"And  did  they  not  disagree  with  him  ?  " 

"  Not  the  least  bit  in  the  world." 

"Why,  that  is  extraordinary!  Had  he  neither  the  stone 
nor  gout,  nor  any  other  complaint,  in  consequence?" 

"  No;  his  health  was  perfectly  good,  and  he  died  through 
an  accident." 

"  By  accident !  Nature  prompted  him  to  eat  oysters,  so 
probably  he  required  them;  for  up  to  a  certain  point  our  pre- 
dominant tastes  are  conditions  of  our  existence." 

"  I  am  of  your  opinion,"  said  the  princess,  with  a  smile. 

"  Madame,  you  always  put  a  malicious  construction  on 
things,"  returned  the  murquis. 

"I  only  want  you  to  understand   that  these  remarks  might 


THE    THIRTEEN.  *J71 

leave  a  wrong  impression  on  a  young  woman's  mind,"  said 
she,  and  interrupted  herself  to  exclaim,  "But  this  niece,  this 
niece  of  mine  !  " 

"  Dear  aunt,  I  still  refuse  to  believe  that  she  can  have  gone 
to  Monsieur  de  Montriveau,"  said  the  Due  de  Navarreins. 

"  Bah  !  "  returned  the  princess. 

"  What  do  you  think,  vidaine  !  "  asked  the  marquis. 

"If  the  duchess  were  an  artless  simpleton  I  should  think 
that " 

"But  when  a  woman  is  in  love  she  becomes  an  artless 
simpleton,"  retorted  the  princess.  "  Really,  my  poor  vidame, 
you  must  be  getting  older." 

"After  all,  what  is  to  be  done?  "  asked  the  duke. 

"  If  my  dear  niece  is  wise,"  said  the  princess,  "  she  will  go 
to  Court  this  evening — fortunately,  to-day  is  Monday,  and 
reception  day — and  you  must  see  that  we  all  rally  round  her 
and  give  the  lie  to  this  absurd  rumor.  There  are  hundreds  of 
ways  of  explaining  things  ;  and  if  the  Marquis  de  Montriveau 
is  a  gentleman,  he  will  come  to  our  assistance.  We  will  bring 
these  children  to  listen  to  reason ' 

"  But,  dear  aunt,  it  is  not  easy  to  tell  Monsieur  de  Montriveau 
the  truth  to  his  face.  He  is  one  of  Bonaparte's  pupils,  and 
he  has  a  position.  Why,  he  is  one  of  the  great  men  of  the  day  ; 
he  is  high  up  in  the  Guards,  and  very  useful  there.  He  has 
not  a  spark  of  ambition.  He  is  just  the  man  to  say  :  '  Here  is 
my  commission,  leave  me  in  peace,'  if  the  King  should  say  a 
word  that  he  did  not  like." 

"Then,  pray,  what  are  his  opinions?" 

"  Very  unsound." 

"Really."  sighed  the  princess,  "the  King  is,  as  he  always 
has  been,  a  Jacobin  under  the  lilies  of  France." 

"  Oh  !  not  quite  so  bad,"  said  the  vidame. 

"Yes;  I  have  known  him  for  a  long  while.  The  man  that 
pointed  out  the  Court  to  his  wife  on  the  occasion  of  her  fir.-t 
State  dinner  in  public  with;  'These  are  our  peonlf.'  ronM 


272  THE    THIRTEEN. 

only  be  a  black-hearted  scoundrel.  I  can  see  monsieur  ex- 
actly the  same  as  ever  in  the  King.  The  bad  brother  who 
voted  so  wrongly  in  his  department  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly was  sure  to  compound  with  the  Liberals  and  allow  them  to 
argue  and  talk.  This  philosophical  cant  will  be  just  as  danger- 
ous now  for  the  younger  brother  as  it  used  to  be  for  the  elder ; 
this  fat  man  with  the  little  mind  is  amusing  himself  by  creating 
difficulties,  and  how  his  successor  is  to  get  out  of  them  I  do 
not  know ;  he  holds  his  younger  brother  in  abhorrence ;  he 
would  be  glad  to  think  as  he  lay  dying :  •'  He  will  not  reign 
very  long '  ' 

"Aunt,  he  is  the  King,  and  I  have  the  honor  to  be  in  his 
service " 

"  But  does  your  post  take  away  your  right  of  free  speech, 
my  dear  ?  You  come  of  quite  as  good  a  house  as  the  Bourbons. 
If  the  Guises  had  shown  a  little  more  resolution,  his  majesty 
would  be  a  nobody  at  this  day.  It  is  time  I  went  out  of  this 
world,  the  noblesse  is  dead.  Yes,  it  is  all  over  with  you,  my 
children,"  she  continued,  looking  as  she  spoke  at  the  vidame. 
"  What  has  my  niece  done  that  the  whole  town  should  be 
talking  about  her?  She  is  in  the  wrong;  I  disapprove  of  her 
conduct,  a  useless  scandal  is  a  blunder  ;  that  is  why  I  still 
have  my  doubts  about  this  want  of  regard  for  appearances ;  I 
brought  her  up,  and  I  know  that — 

Just  at  that  moment  the  duchess  came  out  of  her  boudoir. 
She  had  recognized  her  aunt's  voice  and  heard  the  name  of 
Montriveau.  She  was  still  in  her  loose  morning-wrapper;  and 
even  as  she  came  in,  M.  de  Grandlieu,  looking  carelessly  out 
of  the  window,  saw  his  niece's  carriage  driving  back  along 
the  street.  The  duke  took  his  daughter's  face  in  both  hands 
and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead.  "  So,  dear  girl,"  he  said, 
"you  do  not  know  what  is  going  on?" 

"Has  anything  extraordinary  happened,  father  dear?" 

"Why,  all  Paris  believes  that  you  are  with  Monsieur  de 
Montriveau." 


THE    THIRTEEN.  273 

"  My  dear  Antoinette,  you  were  at  home  all  the  time,  were 
you  not?  "  said  the  princess,  holding  out  a  hand,  which  the 
duchess  kissed  with  affectionate  respect. 

"Yes,  dear  mother;  I  was  at  home  all  the  time.  And," 
she  added,  as  she  turned  to  greet  the  vidame  and  the  marquis, 
"  I  wished  that  all  Paris  should  think  that  I  was  with  Mon- 
sieur de  Montriveau." 

The  duke  flung  up  his  hands,  struck  them  together  in  de- 
spair, and  folded  his  arms. 

"  Then,  cannot  you  see  what  will  come  of  this  mad  freak  ?  " 
he  asked  at  last. 

But  the  aged  princess  had  suddenly  risen  and  stood  looking 
steadily  at  the  duchess ;  the  younger  woman  flushed  and  her 
eyes  fell.  Mme.  de  Chauvry  gently  drew  her  closer,  and  said  : 
"  My  little  angel,  let  me  kiss  you  !  " 

She  kissed  her  niece  very  affectionately  on  the  forehead, 
and  continued  smiling,  while  she  held  her  hand  in  a  tight 
clasp. 

"We  are  not  under  the  Valois  now,  dear  child.  You  have 
compromised  your  husband  and  your  position.  Still,  we  will 
arrange  to  make  everything  right." 

"But,  dear  aunt,  I  do  not  wish  to  make  it  right  at  all.  It 
is  my  wish  that  all  Paris  should  say  that  I  was  with  Monsieur 
de  Montriveau  this  morning.  If  you  destroy  that  belief,  how- 
ever ill-grounded  it  may  be,  you  will  do  me  a  singular  dis- 
service." 

"Do  you  really  wish  to  ruin  yourself,  child,  and  to  grieve 
your  family?" 

"  My  family,  father,  unintentionally  condemned  me  to 
irreparable  misfortune  when  they  sacrificed  me  to  family  con- 
siderations. You  may,  perhaps,  blame  me  for  seeking  alle- 
viations, but  you  will  certainly  feel  for  me." 

"After  all  the  endless  pains  you  take  to  settle  your  daugh- 
ters suitably!"  muttered  M.  de  Navarreins,  addressing  the 
vidame. 
18 


274  THE    THIRTEEN. 

The  princess  shook  a  stray  grain  of  snuff  from  her  skirts. 
"  My  dear  little  girl,"  she  said,  "be  happy,  if  you  can.  We 
are  not  talking  of  troubling  your  felicity,  but  of  reconciling  it 
with  social  usages.  We  all  of  us  here  assembled  know  that 
marriage  is  a  defective  institution  tempered  by  love.  But 
when  you  take  a  lover,  is  there  any  need  to  make  your  bed  in 
the  Place  du  Carrousel?  See  now,  just  be  a  bit  reasonable, 
and  hear  what  we  have  to  say." 

"  I  am  listening." 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse,"  began  the  Due  de  Grandlieu,  "  if 
it  were  any  part  of  an  uncle's  duty  to  look  after  his  nieces,  he 
ought  to  have  a  position  ;  society  would  owe  him  honors  and 
rewards  and  a  salary,  exactly  as  if  he  were  in  the  King's  ser- 
vice. So  I  am  not  here  to  talk  about  my  nephew,  but  of  your 
own  interests.  Let  us  look  ahead  a  little.  If  you  persist  in 
making  a  scandal — I  have  seen  the  animal  before,  and  I  own 
that  I  have  no  great  liking  for  him — Langeais  is  stingy  enough, 
and  he  does  not  care  a  rap  for  any  one  but  himself;  he  will 
have  a  separation  ;  he  will  stick  to  your  money,  and  leave 
you  poor,  and  consequently  you  will  be  a  nobody.  The  in- 
come of  a  hundred  thousand  francs  that  you  have  just  in- 
herited from  your  maternal  great-aunt  will  go  to  pay  for  his 
mistresses'  amusements.  You  will  be  bound  and  gagged  by 
the  law ;  you  will  have  to  say  Amen  to  all  these  arrangements. 

Suppose  Monsieur  de  Montriveau  leaves   you dear  me  ! 

do  not  let  us  put  ourselv.es  in  a  passion,  my  dear  niece ;  a 
man  does  not  leave  a  woman  while  she  is  young  and  pretty ; 
still,  we  have  seen  so  many  pretty  women  left  disconsolate, 
even  among  princesses,  that  you  will  permit  the  supposition, 
an  all  but  impossible  supposition  I  quite  wish  to  believe — 
Well,  suppose  that  he  goes,  what  will  become  of  you  without 
a  husband  ?  Keep  well  with  your  husband  as  you  tnke  care 
of  your  beauty;  for  beauty,  after  all,  is  a  woman's  paraclete, 
and  a  husband  also  stands  between  you  and  worse.  I  am  sup- 
posing that  you  are  happy  and  loved  to  the  end,  and  T  am 


THE    THIRTEEN.  275 

leaving  unpleasant  or  unfortunate  events  altogether  out  of  the 
reckoning.  This  being  so,  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  you 
may  have  children.  What  are  they  to  be?  Montriveaus? 
Very  well ;  they  certainly  will  not  succeed  to  their  father's 
whole  fortune.  You  will  want  to  give  them  all  that  you  have  ; 
he  will  wish  to  do  the  same.  Nothing  more  natural,  dear  me  ! 
And  you  will  find  the  law  against  you.  How  many  times 
have  we  seen  heirs-at-law  bringing  a  lawsuit  to  recover  the 
property  from  illegitimate  children  ?  Every  court  of  law  rings 
with  such  actions  all  over  the  world.  You  will  create  a  fidei 
commissum  perhaps  ;  and  if  the  trustee  betrays  your  confidence, 
your  children  have  no  remedy  against  him ;  and  they  are 
ruined.  So  choose  carefully.  You  see  the  perplexities  of  the 
position.  In  every  possible  way  your  children  will  be  sacri- 
ficed of  necessity  to  the  fancies  of  your  heart ;  they  will  have 
no  recognized  status.  While  they  are  little  they  will  be 
charming ;  but,  Lord  !  some  day  they  will  reproach  you  for 
thinking  of  no  one  but  your  two  selves.  We  old  gentlemen 
know  all  about  it.  Little  boys  grow  up  into  men,  and  men 
are  ungrateful  beings.  When  I  was  in  Germany,  did  I  not 
hear  young  de  Horn  say,  after  supper :  '  If  my  mother  had 
been  an  honest  woman,  I  should  be  prince-regnant  !  '  '  IF?' 
We  have  spent  our  lives  in  hearing  plebeians  say  if.  ^"brought 
about  the  Revolution.  When  a  man  cannot  lay  the  blame  on 
his  father  or  mother,  he  holds  God  responsible  for  his  hard 
lot.  In  short,  dear  child,  we  are  here  to  open  your  eyes.  I 
will  say  all  I  have  to  say  in  a  few  words,  on  which  you  had 
better  meditate :  A  woman  ought  never  to  put  her  husband  in 
the  right." 

"  Uncle,  so  long  as  I  cared  for  nobody,  I  could  calculate  ; 
I  looked  at  interests  then,  as  you  do  ;  now,  I  can  only  feel." 

"  But,  my  dear  little  girl,"  remonstrated  the  vidame,  "life 
is  simply  a  complication  of  interests  and  feelings  ;  to  be  happy, 
more  particularly  in  your  position,  one  must  try  to  reconcile 
one's  feelings  with  one's  interests.  A  grisette  may  love  ac- 


276  THE    THIRTEEN. 

cording  to  her  fancy,  that  is  intelligible  enough,  but  you  have 
a  pretty  fortune,  a  family,  a  name  and  a  place  at  Court,  and 
you  ought  not  to  fling  them  out  of  the  window.  And  what 
have  we  been  asking  you  to  do  to  keep  them  all  ?  To  ma- 
noeuvre carefully  instead  of  falling  foul  of  social  conventions. 
Lord  !  I  shall  very  soon  be  eighty  years  old,  and  I  cannot 
recollect,  under  any  regime,  a  love  worth  the  price  that  you 
are  willing  to  pay  for  the  love  of  this  lucky  young  man." 

The  duchess  silenced  the  vidame  with  a  look  ;  if  Montriveau 
could  have  seen  that  glance,  he  would  have  forgiven  all. 

"  It  would  be  very  effective  on  the  stage,"  remarked  the 
Due  de  Grandlieu,  "  but  it  all  amounts  to  nothing  when  your 
jointure  and  position  and  independence  are  concerned.  You 
are  not  grateful,  my  dear  niece.  You  will  not  find  many 
families  where  the  relatives  have  courage  enough  to  teach  the 
wisdom  gained  by  experience,  and  to  make  rash  young  heads 
listen  to  reason.  Renounce  your  salvation  in  two  minutes,  if 
it  pleases  you  to  damn  yourself;  well  and  good  ;  but  reflect 
well  beforehand  when  it  comes  to  renouncing  your  income. 
I  know  of  no  confessor  who  remits  the  pains  of  poverty.  I 
have  a  right,  I  think,  to  speak  in  this  way  to  you  ;  for  if  you 
are  ruined,  I  am  the  one  person  who  can  offer  you  a  refuge. 
I  am  almost  an  uncle  to  Langeais,  and  I  alone  have  the  right 
to  put  him  in  the  wrong." 

The  Due  de  Navarreins  roused  himself  from  painful  reflec- 
tions. 

"  Since  you  speak  of  feeling,  my  child,"  he  said.  "  let  me 
remind  you  that  a  woman  who  bears  your  name  ought  to  be 
moved  by  sentiments  which  do  not  touch  ordinary  people. 
Can  you  wish  to  give  an  advantage  to  the  Liberals,  to  those 
Jesuits  of  Robespierre's  that  are  doing  all  they  can  to  vilify  the 
noblesse  ?  Some  things  a  Navarreins  cannot  do  without  fail- 
ing in  duty  to  his  house.  You  would  not  be  alone  in  your 
dishonor 

"  Come,  come  !  "  said  the  princess.     "  Dishonor?     Do  not 


TJfE    THIRTEEN.  277 

make  such  a  fuss  about  the  journey  of  an  empty  carriage,  chil- 
dren, and  leave  me  alone  with  Antoinette.  All  three  of  you 
come  and  dine  with  me.  I  will  undertake  to  properly  arrange 
matters.  You  men  understand  nothing ;  you  are  beginning 
to  talk  sourly  already,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  see  a  quarrel 
between  you  and  my  dear  child.  Do  me  the  pleasure  of 
going." 

The  three  gentlemen  probably  guessed  the  princess'  inten- 
tions ;  they  took  their  leave.  M.  de  Navarreins  kissed  his 
daughter  on  the  forehead  with  :  "  Come,  be  good,  dear  child. 
It  is  not  too  late  yet  if  you  choose." 

"  Couldn't  we  find  some  good  fellow  in  the  family  to  pick 
a  quarrel  with  this  Montriveau  ?  "  said  the  vidame,  as  they 
went  downstairs.  , 

When  the  two  women  were  alone,  the  princess  beckoned 
her  niece  to  a  little  low  chair  by  her  side. 

"  My  pearl,"  said  she,  "  in  this  world  below,  I  know  noth- 
ing worse  calumniated  than  God  and  the  Eighteenth  Century  ; 
for  as  I  look  back  over  my  own  young  days,  I  do  not  recollect 
that  a  single  duchess  trampled  the  proprieties  under  foot  as 
you  have  just  done.  Novelists  and  scribblers  brought  the 
reign  of  Louis  XV.  into  disrepute.  Do  not  believe  them. 
The  du  Barry,  my  dear,  was  quite  as  good  as  the  Widow 
Scarron,  and  the  more  agreeable  woman  of  the  two.  In  my 
time  a  woman  could  keep  her  dignity  among  her  gallantries. 
Indiscretion  was  the  ruin  of  us,  and  the  beginning  of  all  the 
mischief.  The  philosophists — the  nobodies  whom  we  admitted 
into  our  salons — had  no  more  gratitude  or  sense  of  decency 
than  to  make  an  inventory  of  our  hearts,  to  traduce  us  one 
and  all,  and  to  rail  against  the  age  by  way  of  a  return  for  our 
kindness.  The  people  are  not  in  a  position  to  judge  of  any- 
thing whatsoever ;  they  looked  at  the  facts,  not  at  the  form. 
But  the  men  and  women  of  those  times,  my  heart,  were  quite 
as  remarkable  as  at  any  other  period  of  the  Monarchy.  Not 
gne  of  your  Werthers,  none  of  your  notabilities,  as  they  are 


L>78  THE    T/TIA-TEEN. 

called,  never  a  one  of  your  men  in  yellow  kid  gloves  and 
trousers  that  disguise  the  poverty  of  their  legs,  would  cross 
Europe  in  the  dress  of  a  traveling  hawker  to  brave  the  dag- 
gers of  a  Duke  of  Modena,  and  to  shut  himself  up  in  the 
dressing-room  of  the  Regent's  daughter  at  the  risk  of  his  life. 
Not  one  of  your  little  consumptive  patients  with  their  tortoise- 
shell  eyeglasses  would  hide  himself  in  a  closet  for  six  weeks, 
like  Lauzun,  to  keep  up  his  mistress'  courage  while  she  was 
lying-in  of  her  child.  There  was  more  passion  in  Monsieur 
de  Jaucourt's  little  finger  than  in  your  whole  race  of  higglers 
that  leave  a  woman  to  better  themselves  elsewhere  !  Just  tell 
me  where  to  find  the  page  that  would  be  cut  in  pieces  and 
buried  under  the  floor  boards  for  one  kiss  on  the  Konigs- 
mark's  gloved  finger. 

"  Really,  it  would  seem  to-day  that  the  roles  are  exchanged, 
and  women  are  expected  to  show  their  devotion  for  men. 
These  modern  gentlemen  are  worth  less,  yet  think  more  of 
themselves.  Believe  me,  my  dear,  all  these  adventures  that 
have  been  made  public,  and  now  are  turned  against  our  good 
Louis  XV.,  were  kept  quite  secret  at  first.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  a  pack  of  poetasters,  scribblers,  and  moralists,  who  hung 
about  our  waiting-women,  and  penned  their  slanders,  our 
epoch  would  have  appeared  in  literature  as  a  well-conducted 
age.  I  am  justifying  the  century  and  not  its  fringe.  Perhaps 
a  hundred  women  of  quality  were  lost ;  but  for  every  one,  the 
rogues  set  down  ten,  like  the  gazettes  after  a  battle  when  they 
count  up  the  losses  of  the  beaten  side.  And  in  any  case  I  do 
not  know  that  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire  can  reproach 
us ;  they  were  coarse,  dull,  licentious  times.  Faugh  !  it  is  re- 
volting. 

"Those  are  the  brothels  of  French  history. 

"This  preamble,  my  dear  child,"  she  continued  after  a 
pause,  "  brings  me  to  the  thing  that  I  have  to  say.  If  you 
care  for  Montriveau,  you  are  quite  at  liberty  to  love  him  at 
vour  case,  and  as  much  as  you  can.  I  know  by  experience 


THE    THIRTEEN.  279 

that,  unless  you  arc  locked  up  (but  locking  people  up  is  out 
of  fashion  now),  you  will  do  as  you  please ;  I  should  have 
done  the  same  at  your  age.  Only,  sweet  heart,  I  should  not 
have  given  up  my  right  to  be  the  mother  of  future  Dues  de 
Langeais.  So  mind  appearances.  The  vidame  is  right.  No 
man  is  worth  a  single  one  of  the  sacrifices  which  we  are  foolish 
enough  to  make  for  their  love.  Put  yourself  in  such  a  posi- 
tion that  you  may  'still  be  Monsieur  de  Langeais'  wife,  in  case 
you  should  have  the  misfortune  to  repent.  When  you  are  an 
old  woman,  you  will  be  very  glad  to  hear  mass  said  at  Court, 
and  not  in  some  provincial  convent.  Therein  lies  the  whole 
question.  A  single  imprudence  means  an  allowance  and  a 
wandering  life ;  it  means  that  you  are  at  the  mercy  of  your 
lover ;  it  means  that  you  must  put  up  with  insolence  from 
women  that  are  not  so  honest,  precisely  because  they  have 
been  very  vulgarly  sharp-witted.  It  would  be  a  hundred 
times  better  to  go  to  Montriveau's  at  night  in  a  cab,  and  dis- 
guised, instead  of  sending  your  carriage  in  broad  daylight. 
You  are  a  little  simpleton,  my  dear  child  !  Your  carriage 
flattered  his  vanity;  your  person  would  have  ensnared  his 
heart.  All  this  that  I  have  said  is  just  and  true ;  but,  for  my 
own  part,  I  do  not  blame  you.  You  are  two  centuries  behind 
the  times  with  your  false  ideas  of  greatness.  There,  leave  us 
to  arrange  your  affairs,  and  say  that  Montriveau  made  your 
servants  drunk  to  gratify  his  vanity  and  to  compromise 
you " 

The  duchess  rose  to  her  feet  with  a  spring.  "  In  heaven's 
name,  aunt,  do  not  slander  him  !  " 

The  old  princess'  eyes  flashed. 

"  My  dear  child,"  she  said,  "  I  should  have  liked  to  spare 
such  of  your  illusions  as  were  not  fatal.  But  there  must  be  an 
end  of  all  illusions  now.  You  would  soften  me  if  I  were  not 
so  old.  Come,  now,  do  not  vex  him,  or  us,  or  any  one  else. 
I  will  undertake  to  sat  isfjl  everybody;  but  promise  me  not  to 
permit  yourself  a  single  step  henceforth  until  you  have  con- 


280  THE   THIRTEEN. 

suited  me.  Tell  me  all,  and  perhaps  I  may  bring  it  all  right 
again. ' ' 

"Aunt,  I  promise " 

"To  tell  me  everything?" 

"Yes,  everything.     Everything  that  can  be  told." 

"But,  my  sweet  heart,  it  is  precisely  what  cannot  be  told 
that  I  want  to  know.  Let  us  understand  each  other  thoroughly. 
Come,  let  me  put  my  withered  old  lips  on  your  beautiful  fore- 
head. No ;  let  me  do  as  I  wish.  I  forbid  you  to  kiss  my 
bones.  Old  people  have  a  courtesy  of  their  own.  There, 
take  me  down  to  my  carriage,"  she  added,  when  she  had 
kissed  her  niece. 

"  Then  may  I  go  to  him  in  disguise,  dear  aunt  ?  " 

"Why — yes.  The  story  can  always  be  denied,"  said  the 
old  princess. 

This  was  the  one  idea  which  the  duchess  had  clearly  grasped 
in  the  sermon.  When  Mme.  de  Chauvry  was  seated  in  the 
corner  of  her  carriage,  Mme.  de  Langeais  bade  her  a  graceful 
adieu  and  went  up  to  her  room.  She  was  quite  happy  again. 

"  My  person  would  have  snared  his  heart ;  my  aunt  is  right ; 
a  man  cannot  surely  refuse  a  pretty  woman  when  she  under- 
stands how  to  offer  herself." 

That  evening,  at  the  Elysee-Bourbon,  the  Due  de  Navar- 
reins,  M.  de  Pamiers,  M.  de  Marsay,  M.  de  Grandlieu,  and 
the  Due  de  Maufrigneuse  triumphantly  refuted  the  scandals 
that  were  circulating  with  regard  to  the  Duchess  de  Langeais. 
So  many  officers  and  other  persons  had  seen  Montriveau  walk- 
ing in  the  Tuileries  that  morning,  that  the  silly  story  was  set 
down  to  chance,  which  takes  all  that  is  offered.  And  so,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  duchess'  carriage  had  waited  before 
Montriveau's  door,  her  character  became  as  clear  and  as  spot- 
less as  Mambrino's  sword  after  Sancho  had  polished  it  up. 

But,  at  two  o'clock,  M.  de  Ronquerolles  passed  Montriveau 
in  a  deserted  alley,  and  said  with  a  smile  :  "  She  is  coming  on, 
is  your  duchess.  Go  on,  keep  it  up !  "  he  added,  and  gave  a 


THE    THIRTEEN.  281 

significant  cut  of  the  riding-whip  to  his  mare,  who  sped  off  like 
a  bullet  down  the  avenue. 

Two  days  after  the  fruitless  scandal,  Mme.  de  Langeais 
wrote  to  M.  de  Montriveau.  That  letter,  like  the  preceding 
ones,  remained  unanswered.  This  time  she  took  her  own 
measures,  and  bribed  M.  de  Montriveau's  man,  Auguste.  And 
so  at  eight  o'clock  that  evening  she  was  introduced  into  Ar- 
mand's  apartment.  It  was  not  the  room  in  which  that  secret 
scene  had  passed  ;  it  was  entirely  different.  The  duchess  was 
told  that  the  general  would  not  be  at  home  that  night.  Had 
he  two  houses?  The  man  would  give  no  answer.  Mme.  de 
Langeais  had  bought  the  key  of  the  room,  but  not  the  man's 
whole  loyalty. 

When  she  was  left  alone  she  saw  her  fourteen  letters  lying  on 
an  old-fashioned  stand,  all  of  them  uncreased  and  unopened. 
He  had  not  read  them.  She  sank  into  an  easy-chair,  and  for 
a  while  she  lost  consciousness.  When  she  came  to  herself, 
Auguste  was  holding  toilet  vinegar  for  her  to  inhale. 

"A  carriage;  quick!"  she  ordered. 

The  carriage  came.  She  hastened  downstairs  with  con- 
vulsive speed,  returned  home,  and  left  orders  that  no  one  was 
to  be  admitted.  For  twenty-four  hours  she  lay  in  bed,  and 
would  have  no  one  near  her  but  her  woman,  who  brought  her 
a  cup  of  orange-flower  water  from  time  to  time.  Suzette 
heard  her  mistress  moan  once  or  twice,  and  caught  a  glimpse 
of  tears  in  the  brilliant  eyes,  now  circled  with  dark  shadows. 

The  next  day,  amid  despairing  tears,  Mme.  de  Langeais 
took  her  resolution.  Her  man  of  business  came  for  an  inter- 
view, and  no  doubt  received  instructions  of  some  kind.  After- 
ward she  sent  for  the  Vidame  de  Pamiers ;  and  while  she 
waited,  she  wrote  a  letter  to  M.  de  Montriveau.  The  vidame 
punctually  came  toward  two  o'clock  that  afternoon,  to  find  his 
young  cousin  looking  white  and  worn,  but  resigned ;  never 
had  her  divine  loveliness  been  more  poetic  than  now  in  the 
languor  of  her  a?ony. 


212  THE    THIRTEEN. 

"  You  owe  this  assignation  to  your  eighty-four  years,  dear 
cousin,"  she  said.  "Ah  !  do  not  smile,  I  beg  of  you,  when 
an  unhappy  woman  has  reached  the  lowest  depths  of  wretched- 
ness. You  are  a  gentleman,  and  after  the  adventures  of  your 
youth  you  must  feel  some  indulgence  for  women." 

"  None  whatever,"  said  he. 

"Indeed!" 

"  Everything  is  in  their  favor." 

"Ah!  Well,  you  arc  one  of  the  inner  family  circle; 
possibly  you  will  be  the  last  relative,  the  last  friend,  whose 
hand  I  shall  press,  so  I  can  ask  your  good  offices.  Will  you, 
dear  vidame,  do  me  a  service  which  I  could  not  ask  of  my 
own  father,  nor  of  my  Uncle  Grandlieu,  nor  of  any  woman  ? 
You  cannot  fail  to  understand.  I  beg  of  you  to  do  my  bid- 
ding, and  then  to  forget  what  you  have  done,  whatever  may 
come  of  it.  It  is  this :  Will  you  take  this  letter  and  go  to 
Monsieur  de  Montriveau?  will  you  see  him  yourself,  give  it 
into  his  hands,  and  ask  him,  as  you  men  can  ask  things  between 
yourselves — for  you  have  a  code  of  honor  between  man  and 
man  which  you  do  not  use  with  us,  and  a  different  way  of 
regarding  things  between  yourselves — ask  him  if  he  will  read 
this  letter?  Not  in  your  presence.  Certain  feelings  men 
hide  from  each  other.  I  give  you  authority  to  say,  if  you 
think  it  necessary  to  bring  him,  that  it  is  a  question  of  life  or 
death  for  me.  If  he  deigns " 

"  Deigns  !  "  repeated  the  vidame, 

"  If  he  deigns  to  read  it,"  the  duchess  continued  with 
dignity,  "  say  one  thing  more.  You  will  go  to  see  him  about 
five  o'clock,  for  I  know  that  he  will  dine  at  home  to-day  at 
that  time.  Very  good.  By  way  of  answer  he  must  come  to 
see  me.  If,  three  hours  afterward,  by  eight  o'clock,  he  docs 
not  leave  his  house,  all  will  be  over.  The  Duchesse  de  Lan- 
geais  will  have  vanished  from  the  world.  I  shall  not  be  dead, 
dear  friend,  no,  but  no  human  power  will  ever  find  me  again 
on  this  earth.  Come  and  dine  with  me;  I  shall  at  least  have 


THE    THIRTEEN.  2&3 

one  friend  with  me  in  the  last  agony.  Yes,  dear  cousin,  to- 
night will  decide  my  fate;  and  whatever  happens  to  me,  I 
pass  through  an  ordeal  by  fire.  There  !  not  a  word.  I  will 

hear  nothing  of  the  nature  of  comment  or  advice Let  us 

chat  and  laugh  together,"  she  added,  holding  out  a  hand, 
which  he  kissed.  "  We  will  be  like  two  gray-headed  philoso- 
phers who  have  learned  to  enjoy  life  to  the  last  moment.  I 
will  look  my  best;  I  will  be  very  enchanting  for  you.  You 
perhaps  will  be  the  last  man  to  set  eyes  on  the  Duchesse  de 
Langeais." 

The  vicomte  bowed,  took  the  letter,  and  went  without  a 
word.  At  five  o'clock  he  returned.  His  cousin  had  studied 
to  please  him,  and  she  looked  lovely  indeed.  The  room  was 
gay  with  flowers  as  if  for  a  festivity ;  the  dinner  was  exquisite. 
For  the  gray-headed  vidame  the  duchess  displayed  all  the 
brilliancy  of  her  wit ;  she  was  more  charming  than  she  had 
ever  been  before.  At  first  the  vidame  tried  to  look  on  ail 
these  preparations  as  a  young  woman's  jest ;  but  now  and  again 
the  attempted  illusion  faded,  the  spell  of  his  fair  cousin's 
charm  was  broken.  He  detected  a  shudder  caused  by  some 
kind  of  sudden  dread,  and  once  she  seemed  to  listen  during  a 
pause. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Hush!  "  she  said. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  duchess  left  him  for  a  few  minutes. 
When  she  came  back  again  she  was  dressed  as  her  maid  might 
have  dressed  for  a  journey.  She  asked  her  guest  to  be  her 
escort,  took  his  arm,  sprang  into  a  hackney-coach,  and  by  a 
quarter  to  eight  they  stood  outside  M.  de  Montriveau's  door. 

Armand  meantime  had  been  reading  the  following  letter : 

"MY  FRIEND: — I  went  to  your  rooms  fora  few  minutes 
without  your  knowledge  ;  I  found  my  letters  there,  and  took 
them  away.  This  cannot  be  indifference,  Armand,  between 
us;  and  hatred  would  show  itself  quite  differently.  If  you 


284  THE    THIRTEEN. 

love  me,  make  an  end  of  this  cruel  play,  or  you  will  kill  me, 
and  afterward,  learning  how  much  you  were  loved,  you  might 
be  in  despair.  If  I  have  not  rightly  understood  you,  if  you 
have  no  feeling  toward  me  but  aversion  which  implies  both 
contempt  and  disgust,  then  I  give  up  all  hope.  A  man  never 
recovers  from  those  feelings.  You  will  have  no  regrets. 
Dreadful  though  that  thought  may  be,  it  will  comfort  me  in 
my  long  sorrow.  Regrets  ?  Oh  !  my  Armand,  may  I  never 
know  of  them;  if  I  thought  I  had  caused  you  but  a  single 

regret But,  no,  I  will  not  tell  you  what  desolation  I 

should  feel.  I  should  be  living  still,  and  I  could  not  be  your 
wife  ;  it  would  be  too  late  ! 

"  Now  that  I  have  given  myself  wholly  to  you  in  thought, 
to  whom  else  should  I  give  myself? — to  God.  The  eyes  that 
you  loved  for  a  little  while  shall  never  look  on  another  man's 
face;  and  may  the  glory  of  God  blind  them  to  all  beside.  I 
shall  never  hear  human  voices  more  since  I  heard  yours — so 
gentle  at  the  first,  so  terrible  yesterday;  for  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  am  still  only  on  the  morrow  of  your  vengeance.  And 
now  may  the  will  of  God  consume  me.  Between  His  wrath 
and  yours,  my  friend,  there  will  be  nothing  left  for  me  but 
a  little  space  for  tears  and  prayers. 

"Perhaps  you  wonder  why  I  write  you?  Ah!  do  not 
think  ill  of  me  if  I  keep  a  gleam  of  hope,  and  give  one  last 
sigh  to  happy  life  before  I  take  leave  of  it  forever.  I  am  in  a 
hideous  position.  I  feel  all  the  inward  serenity  that  comes 
when  a  great  resolution  has  been  taken,  even  while  I  hear  the 
last  growlings  of  the  storm.  When  you  went  out  on  that  ter- 
rible adventure  which  so  drew  me  to  you,  Armand,  you  went 
from  the  desert  to  the  oasis  with  a  good  guide  to  show  you  the 
way.  Well,  I  am  going  out  of  the  oasis  into  the  desert,  and 
you  are  a  pitiless  guide  to  me.  And  yet  you  only,  my  friend, 
can  understand  how  melancholy  it  is  to  look  back  for  the  last 
time  on  happiness — to  you,  and  you  only,  I  can  make  moan 
without  a  blush.  If  you  grant  my  entreaty,  I  shall  be  happy  j 


THE    THIRTEEN.  285 

if  you  are  inexorable,  I  shall  expiate  the  wrong  that  I  have 
done.  After  all,  it  is  natural,  is  it  not,  that  a  woman  should 
wish  to  live,  invested  with  all  noble  feelings,  in  her  friend's 
memory?  Oh  !  my  love  and  only  love,  let  her  to  whom  you 
gave  life  go  down  into  the  tomb  in  the  belief  that  she  is  great 
in  your  eyes.  Your  harshness  led  me  to  reflect ;  and  now  that 
I  love  you  so,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  less  guilty  than  you 
think.  Listen  to  my  justification,  I  owe  it  to  you;  and  you, 
that  are  all  the  world  to  me,  owe  me  at  least  a  moment's 
justice. 

"I  have  learned  by  my  own  anguish  all  that  I  made  you 
suffer  by  my  coquetry  ;  but  in  those  days  I  was  utterly  igno- 
rant of  love.  You,  knowing  what  the  torture  is,  you  mete  it 
out  to  me  !  During  those  first  eight  months  that  you  gave  me 
you  never  roused  any  feeling  of  love  in  me.  Do  you  ask  why 
this  was  so,  my  friend  ?  I  can  no  more  explain  it  than  I  can 
tell  you  why  I  love  you  now.  Oh !  certainly  it  flattered  my 
vanity  that  I  should  be  the  subject  of  your  passionate  talk,  and 
receive  those  burning  glances  of  yours ;  but  you  left  me  cold. 
No,  I  was  not  a  woman  ;  I  had  no  conception  of  womanly  de- 
votion and  happiness.  Who  was  to  blame?  You  would  have 
despised  me,  would  you  not,  if  I  had  given  myself  without  the 
impulse  of  passion  ?  Perhaps  it  is  the  highest  height  to  which 
we  can  rise — to  give  all  and  receive  no  joy  ;  perhaps  there  is 
no  merit  in  yielding  one's  self  to  bliss  that  is  foreseen  and 
ardently  desired.  Alas,  my  friend,  I  can  say  this  now  ;  these 
thoughts  came  to  me  when  I  played  with  you  ;  and  you  seemed 
to  me  so  great  even  then  that  I  would  not  have  you  owe  the 
gift  to  pity —  What  is  this  that  I  have  written  ? 

"  I  have  taken  back  all  my  letters  ;  I  am  flinging  them  one 
by  one  on  the  fire  :  they  are  burning.  You  will  never  know 
what  they  confessed — all  the  love  and  the  passion  and  the  mad- 
ness  

"  I  will  say  no  more.  Armand  ;  I  will  stop.  I  will  not  say 
another  word  of  my  feelings.  Tf  my  prayers  have  not  echoed 


286  THE    THIRTEEN. 

from  my  soul  through  yours,  I  also,  woman  that  I  am,  decline 
to  owe  your  love  to  your  pity.  It  is  my  wish  to  be  loved,  be- 
cause you  cannot  choose  but  love  me,  or  else  to  be  left  without 
mercy.  If  you  refuse  to  read  this  letter,  it  shall  be  burnt.  If, 
after  you  have  read  it,  you  do  not  come  to  me  within  three 
hours,  to  be  henceforth  for  ever  my  husband,  the  one  man  in 
the  world  for  me  ;  then  I  shall  never  blush  to  know  that  this 
letter  is  in  your  hands,  the  pride  of  my  despair  will  protect  my 
memory  from  all  insult,  and  my  end  shall  be  worthy  of  my 
love.  When  you  see  me  no  more  on  earth,  albeit  I  shall  still 
be  alive,  you  yourself  will  not  think  without  a  shudder  of  the 
woman  who,  in  three  hours'  time,  will  live  only  to  overwhelm 
you  with  her  tenderness ;  a  woman  consumed  by  a  hopeless 
love,  and  faithful — not  to  memories  of  past  joys — but  to  a  love 
that  was  slighted. 

"The  Duchesse  de  la  Valliere  wept  for  lost  happiness  and 
vanished  power  ;  but  the  Duchesse  de  Langeais  will  be  happy 
that  she  may  weep  and  be  a  power  for  you  still.  Yes,  you  will 
regret  me.  I  see  clearly  that  I  was  not  of  this  world,  and  I 
thank  you  for  making  it  clear  to  me. 

"Farewell;  you  will  never  touch  my  axe.  Yours  was  the 
executioner's  axe,  mine  is  God's ;  yours  kills,  mine  saves. 
Your  love  was  but  mortal,  it  could  not  endure  disdain  or  ridi- 
cule;  mine  can  endure  all  tilings  without  growing  weaker, 
it  will  last  eternally.  Ah  !  I  feel  a  sombre  joy  in  crushing 
you  that  believe  yourself  so  great ;  in  humbling  you  with  the 
calm,  indulgent  smile  of  one  of  the  least  among  the  angels 
that  lie  at  the  feet  of  God,  for  to  them  is  given  the  right  and 
the  power  to  protect  and  watch  over  men  in  His  name.  You 
have  but  felt  fleeting  desires,  while  the  poor  nun  will  shed  the 
light  of  her  ceaseless  and  ardent  prayer  about  you,  she  will 
shelter  you  all  your  life  lonp;  beneath  the  wings  of  a  love  that 
has  nothing  of  earth  in  it. 

"  I  have  a  presentiment  of  your  answer  ;  our  trysting-place 
will  be — in  heaven.  Strength  and  weakness  can  both  enter 


THE    THIRTEEN.  287 

there,  dear  Armand  ;  the  strong  and  the  weak  are  bound  to 
suffer.  This  thought  soothes  the  anguish  of  my  final  ordeal. 
So  calm  am  I  that  I  should  fear  that  I  had  ceased  to  love  you 
if  I  were  not  about  to  leave  the  world  for  your  sake. 

"ANTOINETTE." 

"Dear  vidame,"  said  the  duchess  as  they  reached  Montri- 
veau's  house,  "  do  me  the  kindness  to  ask  at  the  door  whether 
he  is  at  home." 

The  vidame,  obedient  after  the  manner  of  the  eighteenth 
century  to  a  woman's  wish,  got  out,  and  came  back  to  bring 
his  cousin  an  affirmative  answer  that  sent  a  shudder  through 
her.  She  grasped  his  hand  tightly  in  hers,  suffered  him  to 
kiss  her  on  either  cheek,  and  begged  him  to  go  at  once.  He 
must  not  watch  her  movements  nor  try  to  protect  her. 

"But  the  people  passing  in  the  street,"  he  objected. 

"No  one  can  fail  in  respect  to  me,"  she  said.  It  was 
the  last  word  spoken  by  the  duchess  and  the  woman  of 
fashion. 

The  vidame  went.  Mme.  de  Langeais  wrapped  herself 
about  in  her  cloak,  and  stood  on  the  doorstep  until  the 
clocks  struck  eight.  The  last  stroke  died  away.  The  un- 
happy woman  waited  ten,  fifteen  minutes;  to  the  last  she  tried 
to  see  a  fresh  humiliation  in  the  delay,  then  her  faith  ebbed. 
She  turned  to  leave  the  fatal  threshold. 

"Oh,  God  !  "  the  cry  broke  from  her  in  spite  of  herself; 
it  was  the  first  word  spoken  by  the  Carmelite. 

Montriveau  and  some  of  his  friends  were  talking  together. 
He  tried  to  hasten  them  to  a  conclusion,  but  his  clock  was 
slow,  and  by  the  time  he  started  out  for  the  Hotel  de  Langeais 
the  duchess  was  hurrying  on  foot  through  the  streets  of  Paris, 
goaded  by  the  dull  rage  in  her  heart.  She  reached  the  Boule- 
vard d'Enfer,  and  looked  out  for  the  last  time  through  falling 
tears  on  the  noisy,  smoky  city  that  lay  below  in  a  red  mist. 


288  THE    THIRTEEN. 

lighted  up  by  its  own  lamps.  Then  she  hailed  a  coach,  and 
drove  away,  never  to  return. 

When  the  Marquis  de  Montriveau  reached  the  Hotel  de 
Langeais,  and  found  no  trace  of  his  mistress,  he  thought  that 
he  had  been  duped.  He  hurried  away  at  once  to  the  vidame, 
and  found  that  worthy  gentleman  in  the  act  of  slipping  on 
his  flowered  dressing-gown,  thinking  the  while  of  his  fair 
cousin's  happiness.  Montriveau  gave  him  one  of  the  terrific 
glances  that  produced  the  effect  of  an  electric  shock  on  men 
and  women  alike. 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  have  lent  yourself  to  some  cruel 
hoax,  monsieur?  "  Montriveau  exclaimed.  "  I  have  just  come 
from  Madame  de  Langeais'  house ;  the  servants  say  that  she  is 
out." 

"Then  a  great  misfortune  has  happened,  no  doubt,"  re- 
turned the  vidame,  "and  through  your  fault.  I  left  the 
duchess  at  your  door " 

"When?" 

"At  a  quarter  to  eight." 

"Good-evening,"  returned  Montriveau,  and  he  hurried 
home  to  ask  the  porter  whether  he  had  seen  a  lady  standing 
on  the  door-step  that  evening. 

"Yes,  my  lord  marquis,  a  handsome  woman,  who  seemed 
very  much  put  out.  She  was  crying  like  a  Magdalen,  but  she 
never  made  a  sound,  and  stood  as  upright  as  a  post.  Then  at 
last  she  went,  and  my  wife  and  I  that  were  watching  her, 
while  she  could  not  see  us,  heard  her  say,  '  Oh,  God  !  '  so 
that  it  went  to  our  hearts,  asking  your  pardon,  to  hear  her 
say  it." 

Montriveau,  in  spite  of  all  his  firmness,  turned  pale  at  those 
few  words.  He  wrote  a  few  lines  to  Ronquerolles,  sent  off 
the  message  at  once,  and  went  up  to  his  rooms.  Ronquerolles 
came  just  about  midnight. 

Armand  gave  him  the  duchess"  letter  to  read. 

"Well?"  asked  Ronquerolles. 


THE    THIRTEEN.  289 

"  She  was  here  at  rny  door  at  eight  o'clock  ;  at  a  quarter- 
past  eight  she  had  gone.  I  have  lost  her,  and  I  love  her. 
Oh  !  if  my  life  were  altogether  my  own,  I  could  blow  my 
brains  out." 

"  Pooh,  pooh  !  Keep  cool,"  said  Ronquerolles.  "  Duch- 
esses do  not  fly  off  like  wagtails.  She  cannot  travel  faster 
than  three  leagues  an  hour,  and  to-morrow  we  will  ride  six. 
Confound  it  !  Madame  de  Langeais  is  no  ordinary  woman," 
he  continued.  "  To-morrow  we  will  all  of  us  mount  and 
ride.  The  police  will  put  us  on  her  track  during  the  day. 
She  must  have  a  carriage  ;  angels  of  that  sort  have  no  wings. 
We  shall  find  her  whether  she  is  on  the  road  or  hidden  in 
Paris.  There  is  the  semaphore.  We  can  stop  her.  You  shall 
be  happy.  But,  my  dear  fellow,  you  have  made  a  blunder,  of 
which  men  of  your  energy  are  very  often  guilty.  They  judge 
others  by  themselves,  and  do  not  know  the  point  when  human 
nature  gives  way  if  you  strain  the  cords  too  tightly.  Why 
did  you  not  say  a  word  to  me  sooner  ?  I  would  have  told 
you  to  be  punctual.  Adieu  till  to-morrow,"  he  added,  as 
Montriveau  said  nothing.  "  Sleep  if  you  can,"  he  added, 
with  a  grasp  of  the  hand. 

But  the  greatest  resources  which  society  has  ever  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  statesmen,  kings,  ministers,  bankers,  or  any 
human  power,  in  fact,  were  all  exhausted  in  vain.  Neither 
Montriveau  nor  his  friends  could  find  any  trace  of  the  duchess. 
It  was  clear  that  she  had  entered  a  convent.  Montriveau 
determined  to  search,  or  to  institute  a  search,  for  her  through 
every  convent  in  the  world.  He  must  have  her,  even  at  the 
cost  of  all  the  lives  in  a  town.  And  in  justice  to  this  extra- 
ordinary man,  it  must  be  said  that  his  frenzied  passion  awoke 
to  the  same  ardor  daily  and  lasted  through  five  years.  Only 
in  1829  did  the  Due  de  Navarreins  hear  by  chance  that  his 
daughter  had  traveled  to  Spain  as  Lady  Julia  Hopwood's  maid, 
that  she  had  left  her  service  at  Cadiz,  and  that  Lady  Julia  never 
discovered  that  Mile.  Caroline  was  the  illustrious  duchess 
19 


290  THE    THIRTEEN. 

whose  sudden  disappearance  wagged  the  tongues  of  the  highest 
society  of  Paris. 

The  feelings  of  the  two  lovers  when  they  met  again  on 
either  side  of  the  grating  in  the  Carmelite  convent  should  now 
be  comprehended  to  the  full,  and  the  violence  of  the  passion 
awakened  in  either  soul  will  doubtless  explain  the  catastrophe 
of  the  story. 

In  1823  the  Due  de  Langeais  was  dead,  and  his  wife  was 
free.  Antoinette  de  Navarreins  was  living,  consumed  by  love, 
on  a  ledge  of  rock  in  the  Mediterranean  ;  but  it  was  in  the 
pope's  power  to  dissolve  Sister  Theresa's  vows.  The  happi- 
ness bought  by  so  much  love  might  yet  bloom  for  the  two 
lovers.  These  thoughts  sent  Montriveau  flying  from  Cadiz  to 
Marseilles,  and  from  Marseilles  to  Paris. 

A  few  months  after  his  return  to  France,  a  merchant  brig, 
fitted  out  and  munitioned  for  active  service,  set  sail  from  the 
port  of  Marseilles  for  Spain.  The  vessel  had  been  chartered 
by  several  distinguished  men,  most  of  them  Frenchmen,  who, 
smitten  with  a  romantic  passion  for  the  East,  wished  to  make 
a  journey  to  those  lands.  Montriveau's  familiar  knowledge 
of  Eastern  customs  made  him  an  invaluable  traveling  com- 
panion, and  at  the  entreaty  of  the  rest  he  had  joined  the 
expedition  ;  the  Minister  of  War  appointed  him  lieutenant- 
general,  and  put  him  on  the  Artillery  Commission  to  facilitate 
his  departure. 

Twenty-four  hours  later  the  brig  lay  to  off  the  northwest 
shore  of  an  island  within  sight  of  the  Spanish  coast.  She  had 
been  specially  chosen  for  her  shallow  keel  and  light  mastage, 
so  that  she  might  lie  at  anchor  in  safety  half  a  league  away 
from  the  reefs  that  secure  the  island  from  approach  in  this 
direction.  If  fishing  vessels  or  the  people  on  the  island  caught 
sight  of  the  brig,  they  were  scarcely  likely  to  feel  suspicious  of 
her  at  once ;  and  beside,  it  was  easy  to  give  a  reason  for  her 
presence  without  delay,  Montriveau  hoisted  the  flag  of  the 


THE    THIRTEEN.  291 

United  States  before  they  came  in  sight  of  the  island,  and  the 
crew  of  the  vessel  were  all  American  sailors,  who  spoke  noth- 
ing but  English.  One  of  M.  de  Montriveau's  companions 
took  the  men  ashore  in  the  ship's  long  boat,  and  made  them 
so  drunk  at  an  inn  in  the  little  town  that  they  could  not  talk. 
Then  he  gave  out  that  the  brig  was  manned  by  treasure- 
seekers,  a  gang  of  men  whose  hobby  was  well  known  in  the 
United  States ;  indeed,  some  Spanish  writer  had  written  a 
history  of  them.  The  presence  of  the  brig  among  the  reefs 
was  now  sufficiently  explained.  The  owners  of  the  vessel, 
according  to  the  self-styled  boatswain's  mate,  were  looking 
for  the  wreck  of  a  galleon  which  foundered  thereabout  in 
1778  with  a  cargo  of  treasure  from  Mexico.  The  people  at 
the  inn  and  the  authorities  asked  no  more  questions. 

Armand  and  the  devoted  friends  who  were  helping  him  in 
his  difficult  enterprise  were  all  from  the  first  of  the  opinion 
that  there  was  no  hope  of  rescuing  or  carrying  off  Sister 
Theresa  by  force  or  stratagem  from  the  side  of  the  little  town. 
Wherefore  these  bold  spirits,  with  one  accord,  determined  to 
take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  They  would  make  a  way  to  the 
convent  at  the  most  seemingly  inaccessible  point ;  like  General 
Lamarque,  at  the  storming  of  Capri,  they  would  conquer 
Nature.  The  cliff  at  the  end  of  the  island,  a  sheer  block  of 
granite,  afforded  even  less  hold  than  the  rock  of  Capri.  So 
it  seemed  at  least  to  Montriveau,  who  had  taken  part  in  that 
incredible  exploit,  while  the  nuns  in  his  eyes  were  much  more 
redoubtable  than  Sir  Hudson  Lowe.  To  raise  a  hubbub  over 
carrying  off  the  duchess  would  cover  them  with  confusion. 
They  might  as  well  set  siege  to  the  town  and  convent,  like 
pirates,  and  leave  not  a  single  soul  to  tell  of  their  victory. 
So  for  them  their  expedition  wore  but  two  aspects.  There 
should  be  a  conflagration  and  a  feat  of  arms  that  should  dis- 
may all  Europe,  while  the  motives  of  the  crime  remained  un- 
known ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mysterious,  aerial  descent 
which  should  persuade  the  nuns  that  the  devil  himself  had 


292  THE    THIRTEEN. 

paid  them  a  visit.  They  had  decided  upon  the  latter  course 
in  the  secret  council  held  before  they  left  Paris,  and  subse- 
quently everything  had  been  done  to  insure  the  success  of  an 
expedition  which  promised  some  real  excitement  to  jaded 
spirits  weary  of  Paris  and  its  pleasures. 

An  extremely  light  pirogue,  made  at  Marseilles  on  a  Ma- 
layan model,  enabled  them  to  cross  the  reef,  until  the  rocks 
rose  from  out  the  water.  Then  two  cables  of  iron-wire  were 
fastened  several  feet  apart  between  one  rock  and  another. 
These  wire-ropes  slanted  upward  and  downward  in  opposite 
directions,  so  that  baskets  of  iron-wire  could  travel  to  and  fro 
along  them  ;  and  in  this  manner  the  rocks  were  covered  with 
a  system  of  baskets  and  wire-cables,  not  unlike  the  filaments 
which  a  certain  species  of  spider  weaves  about  a  tree.  The 
Chinese,  an  essentially  imitative  people,  were  the  first  to  take 
a  lesson  from  the  work  of  instinct.  Fragile  as  these  bridges 
were,  they  were  always  ready  for  use;  high  waves  and  the 
caprices  of  the  sea  could  not  throw  them  out  of  working 
order;  the  ropes  hung  just  sufficiently  slack,  so  as  to  present 
to  the  breakers  that  particular  curve  discovered  by  Cachin, 
the  immortal  creator  of  the  harbor  at  Cherbourg.  Against 
this  cunningly  devised  line  the  angry  surge  is  powerless ;  the 
law  of  that  curve  was  a  secret  wrested  from  Nature  by  that 
faculty  of  observation  in  which  nearly  all  human  genius 
consists. 

M.  cle  Montriveau's  companions  were  alone  on  board  the 
vessel,  and  out  of  sight  of  every  human  eye.  No  one  from 
the  deck  of  a  passing  vessel  could  have  discovered  either  the 
brig  hidden  among  the  reefs,  or  the  men  at  work  among  the 
rocks ;  they  lay  below  the  ordinary  range  of  the  most  power- 
ful telescope.  Eleven  days  were  spent  in  preparation  before 
the  Thirteen,  with  all  their  infernal  power,  could  reach  the  foot 
of  the  cliffs.  The  body  of  the  rock  rose  up  straight  from  the 
sea  to  a  height  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet.  Any  attempt 
to  rlinib  the  sheer  wall  of  granite  seemed  impossible  ;  a  mouse 


THE    THIRTEEN.  293 

might  as  well  try  to  creep  up  the  slippery  sides  of  a  plain 
china  vase.  Still  there  was  a  cleft,  a  straight  line  of  fissure  so 
fortunately  placed  that  large  blocks  of  wood  could  be  wedged 
firmly  into  it  at  a  distance  of  about  a  foot  apart.  Into  these 
blocks  the  daring  workers  drove  iron  clamps,  specially  made 
lor  the  purpose,  with  a  broad  iron  bracket  at  the  outer  end, 
through  which  a  hole  had  been  drilled.  Each  bracket  carried 
a  light  pine  board  which  corresponded  with  a  notch  made  in 
a  pole  that  reached  to  the  top  of  the  cliffs,  and  was  firmly 
planted  in  the  beach  at  their  feet.  With  ingenuity  worthy  of 
these  men  who  found  nothing  impossible,  one  of  their  number, 
a  skilled  mathematician,  had  calculated  the  angle  from  which 
the  steps  must  start ;  so  that  from  the  middle  they  rose  gradu- 
ally, like  the  sticks  of  a  fan,  to  the  top  of  the  cliff,  and  de- 
scended in  the  same  fashion  to  its  base.  That  miraculously 
light,  yet  perfectly  firm,  staircase  cost  them  twenty-two  days 
of  toil.  A  little  tinder  and  the  surf  of  the  sea  would  destroy 
all  trace  of  it  for  ever  in  a  single  night.  A  betrayal  of  the 
secret  was  impossible  ;  and  all  search  for  the  violators  of  the 
convent  would  be  doomed  to  failure. 

At  ,the  top  of  the  rock  there  was  a  platform  with  sheer  prec- 
ipice on  all  sides.  The  Thirteen,  reconnoitring  the  ground 
with  their  glasses  from  the  masthead,  made  certain  that, 
though  the  ascent  was  steep  and  rough,  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  gaining  the  convent  garden,  where  the  trees  were 
thick  enough  for  a  hiding-place.  After  such  great  efforts 
they  would  not  risk  the  success  of  their  enterprise,  and  were 
compelled  to  wait  till  the  moon  passed  out  of  her  last  quarter. 

For  two  nights  Montriveau,  wrapped  in  his  cloak,  lay  out 
on  the  rock  platform.  The  singing  at  vespers  and  matins 
filled  him  with  unutterable  joy.  He  stood  under  the  wall  to 
hear  the  music  of  the  organ,  listening  intently  for  one  voice 
among  the  rest.  But  in  spite  of  the  silence,  the  confused 
effect  of  music  was  all  that  reached  his  ears.  In  those  sweet 
harmonies  defects  of  execution  are  lost  ;  the  pure  spirit  of  art 


294  THE    THIRTEEN. 

comes  into  direct  communication  with  the  spirit  of  the  hearer, 
making  no  demand  on  the  attention,  no  strain  on  the  power 
of  listening.  Intolerable  memories  awoke.  All  the  love 
within  him  seemed  to  break  into  blossom  again  at  the  breath 
of  that  music ;  he  tried  to  find  auguries  of  happiness  in  the 
air.  During  the  last  night  he  sat  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  an 
ungrated  window,  for  bars  were  not  needed  on  the  side  of  the 
precipice.  A  light  shone  there  all  through  the  hours;  and 
that  instinct  of  the  heart,  which  is  sometimes  true,  and  as 
often  false,  cried  within  him  :  "  She  is  there  !  " 
.  "  She  is  certainly  there!  To-morrow  she  will  be  mine," 
he  said  to  himself,  and  joy  blended  with  the  slow  tinkling  of 
a  bell  that  began  to  ring. 

Strange  unaccountable  workings  of  the  heart !  The  nun, 
wasted  by  yearning  love,  worn  out  with  tears  and  fasting, 
prayer  and  vigils ;  the  woman  of  nine-and-twenty,  who  had 
passed  through  heavy  trials,  was  loved  more  passionately  than 
the  light-hearted  girl,  the  woman  of  four-and-twenty,  the 
sylphide,  had  ever  been.  But  is  there  not,  for  men  of  vigorous 
character,  something  attractive  in  the  sublime  expression  en- 
graven on  women's  faces  by  the  impetuous  stirrings  of  thought 
and  misfortunes  of  no  ignoble  kind?  Is  there  not  a  beauty  of 
suffering  which  is  the  most  interesting  of  all  beauty  to  those 
men  who  feel  that  within  them  there  is  an  inexhaustible  wealth 
of  tenderness  and  consoling  pity  for  a  creature  so  gracious  in 
weakness,  so  strong  in  love?  It  is  the  ordinary  nature  that  is 
attracted  by  young,  smooth,  pink-and-white  beauty,  or,  in  one 
word,  by  prettiness.  In  some  faces  love  awakens  amid  the 
wrinkles  carved  by  sorrow  and  the  ruin  made  by  melancholy  ; 
Montfiveau  could  not  but  feel  drawn  to  these.  For  cannot  a 
lover,  with  the  voice  of  a  great  longing,  call  forth  a  wholly  new 
creature?  a  creature  athrob  with  the  life  but  just  begun  breaks 
forth  for  him  alone,  from  the  outward  form  that  is  fair  for 
him,  and  faded  for  all  the  world  beside.  Does  he  not  love 
two  women  ?  One  of  them,  as  others  see  her,  i>  pale  and  wan 


THE    THIRTEEN.  295 

and  sad ;  but  the  other,  the  unseen  love  that  his  heart  knows, 
is  an  angel  who  understands  life  through  feeling,  and  is  adorned 
in  all  her  glory  only  for  love's  high  festivals. 

The  general  left  his  post  before  sunrise,  but  not  before  he 
had  heard  voices  singing  together,  sweet  voices  full  of  tender- 
ness sounding  faintly  from  the  cell.  When  he  came  down  to 
the  foot  of  the  cliffs  where  his  friends  were  waiting,  he  told 
them  that  never  in  his  life  had  he  felt  such  inthralling  bliss, 
and  in  the  few  words  there  was  that  unmistakable  thrill  of  re- 
pressed strong  feeling,  that  magnificent  utterance  which  all 
men  respect. 

That  night  eleven  of  his  devoted  comrades  made  the  ascent 
in  the  darkness.  Each  man  carried  a  poinard,  a  provision  of 
chocolate,  and  a  set  of  house-breaking  tools.  They  climbed 
the  outer  walls  with  scaling-ladders,  and  crossed  the  cemetery 
of  the  convent.  Montriveau  recognized  the  long,  vaulted 
gallery  through  which  he  went  to  the  parlor,  and  remembered 
the  windows  of  the  room.  His  plans  were  made  and  adopted 
in  a  moment.  They  would  effect  an  entrance  through  one  of 
the  windows  in  the  Carmelite's  half  of  the  parlor,  find  their 
way  along  the  corridors,  ascertain  whether  the  sisters'  names 
were  written  on  the  doors,  find  Sister  Theresa's  cell,  surprise 
her  as  she  slept,  and  carry  her  off,  bound  and  gagged.  The 
programme  presented  no  difficulties  to  men  who  combined 
boldness  and  a  convict's  dexterity  with  the  knowledge  pecu- 
liar to  men  of  the  world,  especially  as  they  would  not  scruple 
to  give  a  stab  to  insure  silence. 

In  two  hours  the  bars  were  sawn  through.  Three  men  stood 
on  guard  outside,  and  two  inside  the  parlor.  The  rest,  bare- 
footed, took  up  their  posts  along  the  corridor.  Young  Henri 
de  Marsay,  the  most  dexterous  man  among  them,  disguised  by 
way  of  precaution  in  a  Carmelite's  robe,  exactly  like  the  cos- 
tume of  the  convent,  led  the  way,  and  Montriveau  came  im- 
mediately behind  him.  The  clock  struck  three  just  as  the  two 


296  THE    THIRTEEN. 

men  reached  the  dormitory  cells.  They  soon  saw  the  posi- 
tion. Everything  was  perfectly  quiet.  With  the  help  of  a 
dark  lantern  they  read  the  names  luckily  written  on  every 
door,  together  with  the  picture  of  a  saint  or  saints  and  the 
mystical  words  which  every  nun  takes  as  a  kind  of  motto  for 
the  beginning  of  her  new  life  and  the  revelation  of  her  last 
thought.  Montriveau  reached  Sister  Theresa's  door  and  read 
the  inscription :  Sub  invocation  sancta  matris  Theresa,  and  her 
motto:  Adoremus  in  ccternum.  Suddenly  his  companion  laid 
a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  A  bright  light  was  streaming  through 
the  chinks  of  the  door.  M.  de  Ronquerolles  came  up  at  that 
moment. 

''All  the  nuns  are  in  the  church,"  he  said;  "they  are 
beginning  the  Office  for  the  Dead." 

"1  will  stay  here,"  said  Montriveau.  "Go  back  into  the 
parlor,  and  shut  the  door  at  the  end  of  the  passage." 

He  threw  open  the  door  and  rushed  in,  preceded  by  his 
disguised  companion,  who  let  down  the  veil  over  his  face. 

There  before  them  lay  the  duchess — dead ;  her  plank  bed  had 
been  laid  on  the  floor  of  the  outer  room  of  her  cell,  between 
two  lighted  candles.  Neither  Montriveau  nor  de  Marsay 
spoke  a  word  or  uttered  a  cry ;  but  they  looked  into  each 
other's  faces.  The  general's  dumb  gesture  seemed  to  say: 
"  Let  us  carry  her  away  !  " 

"  Quick  !  "  shouted  Ronquerolles,  "  the  procession  of  nuns 
is  leaving  the  church.  You  will  be  caught !  " 

With  magical  swiftness  of  movement,  prompted  by  an  in- 
tense desire,  the  dead  woman  was  carried  into  the  convent 
parlor,  passed  through  the  window,  and  lowered  from  the 
walls  before  the  abbess,  followed  by  the  nuns,  returned  to 
take  up  Sister  Theresa's  body.  The  sister  left  in  charge  had 
imprudently  left  her  post ;  there  were  secrets  that  she  longed 
to  know  ;  and  so  busy  was  she  ransacking  the  inner  room  that 
she  heard  nothing,  and  was  horrified  when  she  came  back  to 
fir.d  that  the  body  was  gone.  Before  the  women,  in  their 


THE    THIRTEEN. 


297 


blank  amazement,  could  think  of  making  a  search,  the  duchess 
had  been  lowered  by  a  cord  to  the  foot  of  the  crags,  and  Mon- 
triveau's  companions  had  destroyed  all  traces  of  their  work. 
By  nine  o'clock  that  morning  there  was  not  a  sign  to  show 
that  either  staircase  or  wire-cables  had  ever  existed,  and  Sister 
Theresa's  body  had  been  taken  on  board.  The  brig  came 
into  the  port  to  ship  her  crew,  and  sailed  that  day. 

Montriveau,  down  in  the  cabin,  was  left  alone  with  Antoi- 
nette de  Navarreins.  For  some  hours  it  seemed  as  if  her  dead 
face  was  transfigured  for  him  by  that  unearthly  beauty  which 
the  calm  of  death  gives  to  the  body  before  it  perishes. 

"Look  here!"  said  Ronquerolles  when  Montriveau  reap- 
peared on  deck,  "that  was  a  woman  once,  now  it  is  nothing. 
Let  us  tie  a  cannon-ball  to  both  feet  and  throw  the  body  over- 
board ;  and  if  you  ever  think  of  her  again,  think  of  her  as  of 
some  book  that  you  read  as  a  boy." 

"Yes,"  assented  Montriveau,  "it  is  nothing  now  but  a 
dream." 

"  That  is  sensible  of  you.  Now,  after  this,  have  passions; 
but  as  for  love,  a  man  ought  to  know  how  to  place  it  wisely. 
It  is  only  the  last  love  of  a  woman  that  can  satisfy  the  first 
love  of  a  man." 

PRE-LEVEQUE,  GENEVA,  January  26,  1834. 


MAITRE  CORNELIUS. 

TRANSLATED   BY  JNO.  RUDO,  B.  A. 

To  Monsieur  Le  Compte  George  Mniszech^ 

Some  envious  beings  may  imagine  on  seeing  this  page 
adorned  by  one  of  the  most  illustrious  of  Samartian 
names  that  I  am  trying,  as  the  goldsmiths  do,  to  en- 
hance a  modern  work  with  an  ancient  jewel — one  of 
the  fashions  of  the  day.  But  you,  my  dear  count,  and 
a  few  others  will  know  that  I  am  only  aiming  at  pay- 
ing the  debt  I  owe  to  Talent,  Memory,  and  Friend- 
ship. 

IN  1479,  on  All-Saints'  Day,  the  time  at  which  this  history 
commences,  vespers  were  just  ending  in  the  cathedral  of  Tours. 
The  Archbishop  Helie  de  Bourdeilles  arose  from  his  throne  to 
himself  give  the  benediction  to  the  faithful.  The  sermon 
had  been  long,  and  darkness  had  fallen  before  its  conclusion  ; 
and  in  some  portions  of  the  great  church,  the  towers  of  which 
were  not  finished  at  that  time,  the  densest  obscurity  pre- 
vailed. 

However,  a  goodly  number  of  tapers  were  burning  in  honor 
of  the  saints,  on  the  triangular  frames  destined  to  receive  these 
so  pious  offerings,  the  merit  and  significance  of  which  have 
never  been  properly  explained.  The  lights  on  each  altar  and 
the  candles  of  the  candelabra  in  the  chancel  were  all  flaming. 
Most  irregularly  shed  among  the  forest  of  columns  and  arches 
which  support  the  roof  of  the  main  aisles  of  the  cathedral,  the 
gleam  of  those  masses  of  candles  scarcely  illumined  the  vast 
(298) 


MA1TRE   CORNELIUS.  299 

building ;  for,  by  the  strong  shadows  cast  by  the  pillars  and 
projected  upward  among  the  galleries,  they  caused  a  myriad 
fantastic  effects  and  increased  the  gloom  that  enveloped  the 
arches,  the  vaulted  ceilings,  and  the  lateral  chapels — which, 
even  at  mid-day,  were  always  gloomy. 

The  immense  congregation  presented  no  less  picturesque 
effects.  Some  figures  were  so  vaguely  seen  in  the  uncertain 
light  that  they  seemed  like  phantoms ;  while  others,  lit  up  by 
some  chance  side-light,  drew  the  attention  like  the  principal 
heads  in  a  picture.  Some  statues  were  animate,  some  of  the 
men  were  stone.  Here  and  there  eyes  might  be  seen  sparkling 
among  the  columns ;  the  marble  saw,  the  stone  spake,  the 
vaulted  groins  reechoed  sighs,  the  whole  edifice  was  instinct 
with  life. 

The  existence  of  nations  can  present  no  more  solemn  scenes, 
no  moment  more  majestic.  Mankind  in  the  mass  needs  motion 
to  make  it  poetical ;  but  in  these  resorts  of  religious  thought, 
when  mundane  wealth  unites  itself  with  celestial  splendor,  an 
incredible  sublimity  is  experienced  in  the  silence ;  there  is 
awe  in  the  bent  knees,  hope  in  the  upraised  hands.  The  con- 
cert of  feeling  which  is  ascending  heavenward  from  each  soul 
produces  an  inexplicable  phenomenon  of  spiritual  effect. 

The  mystical  exaltation  of  the  true  worshipers  reacts  upon 
each  individual  ;  the  feebler  are  doubtless  upborne  upon  this 
flood-tide  of  faith  and  love.  Prayer,  an  electric  force,  draws 
our  nature  higher  than  itself.  This  involuntary  unison  of  all 
wills,  each  equally  humbled  to  earth,  equally  risen  to  heaven, 
contains,  doubtless,  the  secret  of  the  magic  influence  wielded 
by  the  intonations  of  the  priests,  the  music  of  the  organs,  the 
perfumes  and  pomps  of  the  altar,  the  voices  of  the  crowd,  its 
silent  meditations. 

Therefore  we  need  not  be  astonished  to  see  in  the  Middle 
Ages  that  so  many  affairs  of  the  heart  began  in  churches  after 
long  ecstatic  hours — passions  not  always  ending  in  sanctity, 
and  for  which,  as  is  usually  the  case,  woman  did  the  penance. 


300  MAI  IRE   CORNELIUS. 

In  those  days  religious  sentiment  certainly  was  in  close 
affinity  to  love ;  either  it  was  the  motive  or  the  end  of  it. 
Love  was  but  a  second  religion  ;  it  had  its  fine  frenzies,  its 
innocent  superstitions,  its  sublime  emotions,  all  in  sympathy 
with  Christianity. 

The  manners  of  that  period  will  also  serve  to  explain  the 
alliance  existing  between  religion  and  love.  First,  then, 
social  life  had  no  place  of  meeting  but  before  the  altar. 
Lords,  vassals,  men,  women  were  never  equals  elsewhere. 
In  the  church  alone  could  lovers  meet  and  exchange  their 
vows.  The  festivals  of  the  church  formed  our  predecessors' 
theatres;  woman's  soul  was  more  deeply  stirred  than  to-day 
it  is  at  an  opera  or  a  ball ;  and  does  not  every  strong  emotion 
invariably  bring  woman  around  to  love? 

So,  by  dint  of  mingling  with  life  and  seizing  it  in  all  its 
acts  and  interests,  religion  had  become  the  sharer  of  every 
virtue,  the  accomplice  of  every  vice.  Religion  had  become  a 
science ;  it  was  mixed  up  with  politics,  eloquence,  crime ;  it 
entered  the  skin  of  the  sick  man  and  the  poor ;  it  sat  on 
thrones — it  was  all-pervading.  These  semi-learned  observa- 
tions may,  perhaps,  serve  to  vindicate  the  veracity  of  this 
Study,  though  certain  details  may  scandalize  the  more  perfect 
morals  of  our  age,  which  are,  as  is  known  of  all,  a  trifle  too 
strait-laced. 

At  that  moment  when  the  priests  stopped  their  chanting, 
and  the  notes  of  the  organ  mingled  with  the  vibrant  voices  of 
the  loud  "Amen"  as  it  issued  from  the  deep  chests  of  the 
choir-men,  and  sent  a  murmuring  echo  through  the  farther 
arches,  the  while  the  devout  assembly  awaited  the  archbishop's 
benediction,  a  burgher,  impatient  to  get  home  or  trembling 
for  the  safety  of  his  purse  in  the  crowd  when  the  congrega- 
tion should  disperse,  quietly  slipped  out,  taking  the  risk  of 
being  called  a  bad  Catholic.  On  this,  a  gentleman,  who  was 
leaning  on  one  of  the  enormous  columns  that  surround  the 
choir,  where  he  was  enshrouded  in  the  shadows,  hastened  to 


MAfTRE   CORNELIUS.  IJOI 

take  the  place  so  recently  vacated  by  the  worthy  Tourangeau. 
Which  done,  he  quickly  hid  his  face  behind  the  tall  plumes 
of  his  tall,  gray  cap,  and  knelt  down  before  his  chair  with  so 
deep  an  air  of  contrition  that  it  might  even  have  deceived  an 
inquisitor. 

His  immediate  neighbors,  after  observing  him  closely, 
seemed  to  recognize  him  ;  after  which  as  with  one  accord  they 
returned  to  their  devotions  with  a  significant  shrug  expressive 
of  all  their  thoughts — a  caustic,  jeering,  mocking  scandal. 
Two  old  women  nodded  their  heads  expressively,  exchanging 
glances  which  seemed  to  penetrate  the  future. 

The  chair  into  which  this  young  man  had  glided  was  near 
by  a  chapel  built  in  between  two  columns,  inclosed  by  an 
iron  railing.  It  was  a  custom  for  the  dean  and  chapter  of  the 
cathedral  to  rent  at  a  high  figure  to  seignorial  families,  and 
even  to  rich -burgesses,  the  right  to  be  present  at  the  services, 
themselves  and  their  household  exclusively,  in  the  various 
lateral  chapels  situated  along  the  side-aisles  of  the  cathedral. 
This  simony  is  practiced  even  now.  Then  a  woman  had  her 
chapel  as  she  now  has  her  box  at  the  opera.  The  tenants  of 
these  privileged  places  were  expected  to  decorate  and  keep  up 
the  altars  therein  ;  and  each  made  it  a  pride  to  adorn  theirs 
most  sumptuously — a  vanity  which,  needless  to  say,  was  not 
rebuked  by  the  church. 

In  this  particular  chapel  a  lady  was  kneeling  close  to  the 
railing  on  a  handsome  rug  of  red  velvet  trimmed  with  gold 
tassels,  and  close  to  the  spot  but  now  vacated  by  the  worthy 
citizen.  A  silver-gilt  lamp  hung  from  the  vaulted  ceiling  of 
the  chapel  before  the  magnificently  decorated  altar  and  cast 
its  mild  light  on  the  Book  of  Hours*  held  by  the  lady.  The 
book  trembled  violently  in  her  hand  as  the  young  man  ap- 
proached her. 

"Amen  !  " 

To  that  response,  chanted  with  a  low.  sweet,  agitated  voice, 
*  Praver  Book. 


302  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

happily  submerged  in  the  now  general  clamor,  she  rapidly 
added  in  a  whisper  : 

"You  will  ruin  me  !  " 

The  words  were  spoken  with  an  innocence  to  which  any 
man  of  delicacy  would  at  once  have  submitted  ;  they  reached 
and  pierced  the  heart.  But  the  stranger,  carried  away  perhaps 
by  one  of  those  paroxysms  of  passion  which  stifle  conscience, 
remained  in  his  chair,  and  slightly  raised  his  head  that  he 
might  peer  into  the  chapel. 

"  He  sleeps  !  "  he  replied  in  a  voice  so  low  that  the  words 
could  only  be  heard  by  the  young  woman  as  sound  is  heard 
in  its  own  echo. 

The  lady  turned  pale  ;  her  furtive  glance  left  for  an  instant 
the  vellum  page  of  the  missal  and  turned  on  the  old  man 
whom  the  youthful  one  had  designated.  What  terrible  com- 
plicity was  in  that  look  ?  When  the  young  woman  had  cau- 
tiously examined  the  old  man,  she  drew  a  deep  breath  and 
raised  her  brow,  adorned  with  a  precious  jewel,  to  a  picture 
of  the  Virgin  ;  this  simple  movement,  her  attitude,  the  glis- 
tening eye,  disclosed  her  life  with  ingenuous  candor  ;  had  she 
been  wicked  she  would  have  exercised  more  dissimulation. 

The  person  who  thus  inspired  these  two  with  terror  was  a 
little  old  hunchback,  nearly  bald,  with  a  savage  expression, 
and  who  wore  a  long,  dingy-colored  gray  beard  cut  into  the 
shape  of  a  broad  fan.  On  his  breast  glittered  the  cross  of  St. 
Michael.  His  coarse,  thick  hands  were  covered  with  rough 
gray  hairs  and  had  been  clasped  together,  but  they  had  now 
dropped  slightly  asunder  in  the  slumber  to  which  he  had  so 
imprudently  yielded  himself.  The  right  hand  seemed  ready 
to  grasp  the  dagger,  the  handle  guard  of  which  was  of  iron  in 
shape  like  a  shell.  In  the  manner  in  which  he  had  disposed 
this  weapon  the  hilt  was  immediately  under  his  hand  ;  if  by 
ill-luck  he  should  touch  it  he  would,  beyond  doubt,  awaken 
instantly  and  look  at  his  wife. 

His  sardonic  mouth,  the  peaked  chin,  aggressively  pushed 


MA!TRE  CORNELIUS.  303 

forward,  showed  all  the  characteristics  of  malignancy,  of  a 
coldly  cruel  sagacity,  which  would  surely  enable  him  to  divine 
all  because  he  suspected  all.  His  yellow  forehead  was  puck- 
ered like  to  those  of  men  who  believe  nothing,  weigh  every- 
thing, who  test  the  exact  meaning  of  every  human  act  and  the 
meaning  thereof.  His  bodily  frame,  though  deformed,  was 
bony  and  sinewy  ;  it  looked  to  be  both  vigorous  and  irritable  ; 
he  was,  in  short,  an  ogre  who  had  been  spoiled  in  the  making. 

When  this  terrible  being  should  awake  the  young  lady  was 
evidently  in  much  danger.  That  jealous  husband  would  cer- 
tainly not  fail  to  at  once  detect  the  difference  between  the 
worthy  old  burgher,  who  gave  him  no  umbrage,  and  the  new- 
comer, a  young  courtier,  slender  and  elegant. 

"Libera  nos  a  malo  "  [deliver  us  from  evil],  said  she,  trying 
to  impart  her  fears  to  the  young  cavalier. 

The  latter  raised  his  eyes  and  looked  at  her.  Tears  were  in 
his  eyes  ;  the  tears  of  love  and  despair.  When  the  young 
lady  saw  them  she  trembled  and  thus  betrayed  herself.  Per- 
haps both  had  long  resisted  and  were  no  longer  able  to 
further  hold  out  against  a  love  which  increased  with  each 
recurring  day  through  invincible  obstacles,  brooded  over  by 
fear,  strengthened  by  youth. 

The  lady  was  fairly  handsome  ;  but  her  pallor  told  of  suffer- 
ings endured  in  secret,  which  made  her  interesting.  More- 
over, she  had  an  elegant  figure  and  her  hair  was  the  most 
lovely  in  the  world.  Watched  over  by  a  tiger,  her  life  was 
the  forfeit  if  discovered  whispering  a  word,  accepting  a  glance, 
or  in  permitting  a  mere  pressure  of  the  hand. 

It  is  possible  that  love  may  have  been  more  deeply  felt 
than  by  those  hearts,  if  never  more  rapturously  confessed,  never 
more  enjoyed,  but  certes  it  is  that  never  was  passion  so  peril- 
ously circumstanced.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  to  these  two 
beings  the  air,  the  sounds  about  them,  the  foot-falls  and  so 
forth,  things  of  utter  indifference  to  other  people,  presented 
hidden  qualities,  perceptible  peculiarities  which  only  they  could 


304  MAJTRE   CORNELIUS. 

distinguish.  Ic  may  be  that  their  love  caused  them  to  become 
faithful  interpreters  of  the  touch  of  the  icy  hands  of  the  old 
priest  to  whom  they  made  their  auricular  confessions  of  their 
sins,  and  from  whose  hands  they  received  the  Host  as  they 
knelt  at  the  holy  altar  of  God.  It  was  a  deep  love,  love 
gashed  into  the  soul  like  as  a  scar  is  hewn  upon  the  body  and 
which  remains  during  the  whole  of  our  life  !  As  these  two 
young  people  regarded  each  other,  the  woman  seemed  to  say 
to  her  lover:  "  Let  us  perish,  but  as  one."  And  the  young 
knight  made  answer :  "  We  are  one,  but  we  will  not  die  !  " 

For  her  response  she  made  him  a  sign,  indicating  the  pres- 
ence of  her  elderly  duenna  and  two  pages. 

The  duenna  slept ;  the  pages  were  but  youthful  ones  and 
seemingly  careless  of  what  might  happen,  of  good  or  evil,  to 
their  master. 

"  Do  not  be  alarmed  as  you  leave  the  church;  go  and  be 
managed  as  you  may  be  led." 

The  young  noble  had  but  murmured  these  words,  when  the 
hand  of  the  old  seigneur  slipped  down  upon  the  handle  of  his 
dagger.  Feeling  the  cold  touch  of  the  iron  he  instantly 
awoke,  and  his  tawny  eyes  at  once  fixed  themselves  upon  his 
wife.  By  a  peculiarity,  seldom  granted  even  to  men  of  genius, 
he  awoke  with  an  alert  brain  and  as  vivid  ideas  as  though 
he  had  never  slept. 

He  was  jealous. 

The  lover,  one  eye  on  his  mistress,  the  other  on  her  husband, 
whom  he  closely  watched,  now  rose  and  vanished  behind  a 
column  at  the  first  movement  he  had  detected  in  the  old  man's 
hands ;  then  he  effaced  himself  swiftly  as  a  bird.  The  lady's 
eyes  were  engaged  on  her  book  and  she  appeared  to  be  quite 
calm.  But  try  how  she  might,  she  could  not  prevent  the 
flushing  of  her  face  nor  the  unwonted  violence  of.  the  beating 
of  her  heart.  The  old  lord  saw  the  unusual  crimson  of  her 
cheeks,  forehead,  and  even  of  her  eyelids.  He  could  also 
hear  the  vehement  throbs  of  her  heart,  which  were  distinctly 


MA1TRE   CORNELIUS.  305 

audible  in  the  chapel.  He  looked  inquisitively  around,  but 
not  seeing  any  one  whom  he  could  distrust,  said  to  his  wife : 

"  What  troubles  you,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  The  scent  of  the  incense  sickens  me,"  she  replied. 

"Is  it  particularly  unpleasant  to-day?  "   he  asked. 

Despite  this  sarcastic  query,  the  wily  old  man  pretended 
to  accept  this  excuse  ;  but  still  he  suspected  some  treachery 
and  resolved  to  watch  his  treasure  more  carefully  even  than  he 
had  hitherto  done. 

The  benediction  was  pronounced.  Without  waiting  for  the 
Sacula  S(zculorum,  the  crowd  rushed  like  a  heaving  torrent  to 
the  doors  of  the  church.  Following  his  usual  custom,  the  old 
lord  waited  until  the  general  hurry  was  over ;  then  issued 
forth,  the  duenna  in  front  with  the  youngest  page,  who  carried 
a  lantern  on  a  pole ;  himself,  his  wife  on  arm,  being  followed 
by  the  other  page. 

As  he  made  his  way  to  the  side-door  opening  on  the  west 
nave  of  the  cloister,  by  which  he  generally  went  out,  a  stream 
of  people  detached  itself  from  the  flood  which  obstructed  the 
great  portals  and  surged  through  the  aisle  around  the  old 
noble  and  his  people.  The  mass  was  impacted  too  solidly  to 
allow  of  his  retracing  his  steps ;  and  the  gentleman  and  his 
wife  were  therefore  pushed  onward  to  the  door  by  the  tremen- 
dous pressure  of  the  crowd  behind  them. 

The  husband  tried  to  pass  out  first,  dragging  the  lady  by 
her  arm,  but  just  then  he  was  jerked  vigorously  into  the  street 
and  his  wife  snatched  from  him  by  a  stranger.  The  sinister 
hunchback  at  once  saw  that  he  had  fallen  into  a  trap,  and  one 
that  had  been  cleverly  arranged. 

It  was  now  he  repented  himself  that  he  had  slept ;  but  he 
collected  his  whole  strength,  seized  his  wife  once  more  by  the 
sleeve  of  her  gown  and  with  his  other  tried  to  cling  fast  to  the 
door-post  of  the  church  ;  but  love's  ardor  carried  the  day 
against  jealous  rage.  The  young  man  clasped  his  mistress 
round  the  waist  and  tore  her  away  with  the  strength  of 
20 


306  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

despair ;  so  violent  was  the  disruption  that  the  stuff  of  silk  and 
gold  was  rent  noisily  apart,  the  brocade  and  whalebone  gave 
way,  and  the  old  man  remained  standing  with  naught  save  the 
sleeve  in  his  clutch. 

A  roar  like  that  of  a  lion  rose  above  the  tumult  of  the  mul- 
titude, and  a  terrible  voice  was  heard  bawling  out  the  words : 

"  To  me,  Poitiers!  Help  ;  here  to  the  door  !  The  Comte 
de  Saint-Vallier's  retainers,  here,  help  !  " 

And  the  Comte  Aymar  de  Poitiers,  Sire  de  Saint- Vallier, 
attempted  to  draw  his  sword  and  clear  a  space  around  him. 
But  he  found  himself  pressed  upon  and  surrounded  by  forty 
or  fifty  gentlemen  whom  it  were  most  dangerous  to  wound. 
Several  of  these,  especially  of  the  highest  rank,  replied  gibingly 
to  him  as  they  dragged  him  along  the  cloisters. 

With  a  lightning-like  celerity  the  abductor  carried  the 
countess  to  an  open  chapel,  seating  her  on  a  wooden  bench 
behind  a  confessional  box.  By  the  light  of  the  candles  burn- 
ing before  the  saint  to  whom  the  chapel  was  dedicated  they 
gazed  upon  each  other  for  a  silent  moment,  clasped  hands, 
and  amazed  at  their  audacity.  The  countess  could  not  sum- 
mon the  cruel  courage  to  blame  the  young  man  for  the  bold- 
ness to  which  they  owed  this  first  and  only  instant  of  happiness. 

"Will  you  fly  with  me  into  the  adjacent  States?"  asked 
the  young  man  eagerly.  "  Two  English  horses  are  awaiting 
us  near-by  which  are  able  to  do  thirty  leagues  at  a  stretch." 

"Ah  !  "  she  cried  softly,  ';  in  what  corner  of  the  world 
could  you  find  a  hiding-place  for  a  daughter  of  King  Louis 
the  Eleventh?" 

"True,"  answered  the  young  man,  silenced  by  a  difficulty 
he  had  not  anticipated. 

"Why,  then,  did  you  tear  me  from  my  husband?"  she 
asked  in  a  voice  of  terror. 

"Alas  !  "  replied  the  young  lover,  "  I  did  not  guess  at  the 
agitation  I  should  experience  in  finding  myself  by  your  side, 
in  hearing  your  voice  as  you  spoke  to  me.  I  had  arranged 


MAiTRE   CORNELIUS.  307 

plans,  two  or  three  schemes,  and  now  that  I  see  you,  I  feel  as 
if  all  were  accomplished." 

"  But  I  am  lost !  "  said  the  countess. 

"  We  are  saved  !  "  the  young  man  cried  in  the  blind  enthu- 
siasm of  love.  ''Listen  carefully  to  me." 

''This  will  cost  me  my  life!"  said  she,  letting  the  tears 
that  filled  her  eyes  go  rolling  down  her  cheeks.  "  The  count 
will  kill  me — perhaps  this  very  night !  But  go  you  to  the 
King ;  tell  him  all  the  tortures  his  daughter  has  endured  these 
five  years.  He  loved  me  well  when  I  was  a  child  ;  he  used  to 
laugh  and  call  me  '  Marie-full-of-grace,'  because  I  was  so  ugly. 
Ah  !  could  he  only  know  to  what  a  man  he  gave  me,  his  anger 
would  be  terrible.  I  have  never  dared  complain  out  of  a  sense 
of  pity  for  the  count.  Beside,  how  could  my  plaint  reach  the 
ears  of  the  King  ?  Even  my  confessor  is  but  a  spy  of  Saint- 
Vallier.  That  is  why  I  consented  to  this  criminal  meeting, 
hoping  to  find  a  champion — some  one  who  will  declare  the 
truth  to  the  King.  But — may  I  dare  trust?  Oh  !  "  she  cried, 
turning  pale  and  interrupting  herself,  "  here  comes  the 
page." 

The  distraught  countess  put  her  hands  before  her  face  and 
tried  to  veil  it. 

"Fear  nothing,"  said  the  young  lord,  "he  is  ours  !  You 
may  safely  trust  him  ;  he  belongs  to  me.  When  the  count  con- 
trives to  return  to  you,  he  will  give  us  timely  warning.  In 
the  confessional,"  he  added  in  a  muttered  tone,  "  is  a  priest, 
a  friend  of  mine ;  he  will  say  that  he  rescued  you  from  the  tur- 
moil, and  drew  you  here  for  safety  out  of  the  crowd,  and  gave 
you  his  protection  in  this  chapel.  Thus  all  is  arranged  to 
deceive  him." 

At  these  words  the  countess  dried  her  tears,  but  a  saddened 
expression  clouded  her  face. 

"He  cannot  be  deceived,"  said  she.  "To-night  he  will 
know  all.  Beware  his  revenge.  Save  me  from  his  blows.  At 
once  to  le  Plessis,  see  the  King,  tell  him ;  "  here  she  hesi- 


308  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

tated;  but  some  dreadful  memory  gave  her  courage  to  disclose 
some  secrets  of  her  married  life,  so  she  continued  : 

"Yes,  tell  him  that  to  obtain  the  mastery  over  me  the  count 
has  me  bled  in  both  arms — to  exhaust  me.  Tell  him  that  my 
husband  drags  me  around  by  my  hair;  tell  him  that  I  am  a 
prisoner;  say  that " 

Her  heart  was  bursting,  sobs  choked  her  throat,  tears  rained 
from  her  eyes.  In  her  agitation  she  allowed  the  young  man 
to  kiss  her  hand,  the  while  he  muttered  broken,  inconsecutive 
words. 

"Poor  love  !  No  one  may  speak  to  the  King.  Although 
my  uncle  is  chief  master  of  his  bowmen,  I  cannot  obtain  ad- 
mission to  le  Plessis.  My  darling  lady  !  my  most  beautiful 
queen  !  Oh  !  but  what  has  she  not  suffered?  Marie,  at  least 
let  me  say  two  words  to  you,  or  we  are  assuredly  lost." 

"What  will  become  of  us?"  she  murmured.  Then,  dis- 
cerning on  the  dark  wall  a  picture  of  the  Virgin  on  which  the 
light  fell  from  the  lamp,  she  cried  out : 

"  Holy  Mother  of  God,  give  us  counsel !  " 

"To-night,"  said  the  young  man,  "  I  shall  be  in  your  room 
with  you." 

"  How?  "  was  her  nal've  question. 

"  This  evening  I  go  to  propose  myself  as  an  apprentice  to 
Maitre  Cornelius,  the  King's  silversmith.  To  him  I  bear  a 
letter  of  introduction  which  will  compel  him  to  receive  me. 
His  house  is  next  to  yours.  Once  under  the  roof  of  that  old 
scoundrel  I  can,  by  the  aid  of  a  silken  ladder,  soon  find  my 
way  to  your  suite  of  rooms." 

"Oh  !  "  said  she,  petrified  with  horror,  "  if  you  love  me, 
do  not  go  to  Maitre  Cornelius." 

"Ah!"  cried  he,  pressing  her  to  his  heart  with  all  the 
energy  of  youth,  "  then,  indeed,  you  do  love  me  !  " 

"Yes,"  said  she.  -'Are  you  not  my  sole  hope  ?  Beside," 
she  added,  regarding  him  with  dignity,  "  you  are  a  gentleman, 
I  confide  myself  to  your  honor.  So  unhappy  am  T  that  you 


MAI'TRE  CORNELIUS.  soy 

will  never  betray  my  trust.  But  to  what  end  is  all  this?  Go, 
the  rather  let  me  die  than  that  you  should  abide  in  the  house 
of  Maitre  Cornelius.  Do  you  not  know  that  all  his  appren- 
tices  " 

"  Have  been  hanged?"  said  the  young  noble,  laughing. 

"But  do  not  go  ;  you  will  become  the  victim  of  some  sor- 
cery." 

"  I  cannot  pay  a  too  high  price  for  the  great  honor  of  serving 
you,"  said  he,  with  a  look  of  such  ardor  that  her  eyes  drooped 
under  it. 

"And  my  husband?  "  said  she. 

"  Here  is  that  will  cause  him  to  sleep,"  answered  the  young 
man,  drawing  a  small  phial  from  his  belt. 

"  Not  for  ever?"  queried  the  countess  tremblingly. 

For  all  reply  the  young  seigneur  made  a  gesture  of  horror. 

"  I  would  long  ago  have  defied  him  to  mortal  combat  if  it 
were  not  for  his  great  age,"  said  he.  "  But  God  preserve  me 
from  ridding  his  life  by  a  philter." 

"  Forgive  me,"  said  the  countess  blushing.  "  My  sins  have 
cruelly  punished  me.  In  a  moment  of  despair  I  have  thought 
of  killing  the  count — I  feared  you  might  have  the  same  desire. 
So  great  has  my  sorrow  been  that  as  yet  I  have  never  been 
able  to  confess  the  so  wicked  thought ;  I  believed  it  would  be 
repeated  to  him,  and  then  he  would  be  avenged  on  me.  I 
have  shamed  you,"  she  went  on,  distressed  by  his  silence. 
"  Well,  I  deserve  your  blame  !  " 

She  flung  the  phial  with  great  violence  to  the  ground  and  it 
was  broken. 

"Do  not  come,"  said  she,  "it  is  that  my  husband  sleeps 
lightly  ;  my  duty  demands  that  I  await  the  help  of  heaven— 
that  will  I  do." 

She  arose  to  leave  the  chapel.  "Ah!"  cried  the  young 
man,  "but  bid  me  kill  him  and  I  will  do  it.  You  will  see 
me  this  evening,  madame." 

"  I  showed  wisdom  in  destroying  that  drusr,"  she  murmured 


310  MA!TRE  CORNELIUS. 

in  a  voice  husky  with  joy  at  finding  herself  so  ardently  loved. 
"The  dread  of  arousing  my  husband  will  save  us  from  our- 
selves." 

"  I  pledge  you  my  life,"  said  the  young  man,  pressing  her 
hand. 

"  Should  the  King  be  willing  the  pope  can  annul  my  mar- 
riage ;  then  we  may  be  united,"  she  cried,  giving  him  a  look 
full  of  delicious  hopes. 

"  Monseigneur  comes  !  "  exclaimed  the  page  bustling  in. 

Instantly  the  young  noble,  surprised  at  the  short  time  he 
had  gained  with  his  mistress  and  greatly  wondering  at  the 
count's  celerity,  snatched  a  kiss  which  the  countess  could  not 
refuse. 

"To-night,"  said  he,  as  he  hastily  slipped  out  of  the 
chapel. 

Thanks  to  the  darkness,  the  lover  made  his  way  to  the  great 
portal  in  safety,  gliding  from  pillar  to  pillar  in  the  long 
shadows  which  they  cast  across  the  nave.  An  old  canon 
suddenly  issued  from  the  confessional,  came  to  the  side  of  the 
countess  and  gently  closed  the  railing,  while  the  page  gravely 
marched  up  and  down  with  the  manner  of  a  sentry. 

A  blaze  of  light  heralded  the  coming  of  the  count.  He 
was  accompanied  by  a  number  of  his  friends  and  by  servants 
bearing  torches  ;  himself  advanced,  drawn  sword  in  hand.  His 
gloomy  gaze  seemed  to  pierce  the  dense  cathedral  shadows 
and  to  rake  the  remotest  depths. 

"  Monseigneur,  madame  is  there,"  said  the  page  to  him. 

The  Count  de  Saint-Vallier  found  his  wife  kneeling  on  the 
steps  before  the  altar,  the  canon  standing  alongside  reading 
his  breviary.  At  the  sight  the  count  violently  shook  the  rail- 
ing as  if  to  give  vent  to  his  fury. 

"What  want  you  here  in  church,  with  a  drawn  sword?" 
asked  the  old  priest. 

"  Father,  this  is  my  husband,"  said  the  countess. 

The  priest  took  a  key  out  of  his  sleeve  and  unlocked  the 


MA  17  RE   CORNELIUS.  311 

railed  gate  of  the  chapel.  The  count,  almost  against  his  will, 
cast  an  eye  into  the  confessional,  then  entered  the  chapel, 
and  seemed  to  be  listening  to  the  silence  of  the  place. 

"Monsieur,"  said  his  wife,  "you  owe  your  thanks  to  this 
venerable  canon  for  giving  me  a  refuge  here." 

The  Count  de  Saint-Vallier  turned  pale  with  anger;  he 
dared  not  look  at  his  friends,  who  had  come  less  with  the  in- 
tention of  assisting  than  of  laughing  at  him.  Then  he  curtly 
answered  : 

"Thank  the  Lord,  my  father,  for  I  will  surely  find  some 
way  to  repay  you." 

He  took  his  wife  by  the  arm,  and,  without  giving  her  an 
opportunity  to  finish  the  curtsey  she  was  making  to  the  canon, 
he  signed  to  his  retainers  and  left  the  church  without  uttering 
a  word  to  those  who  had  accompanied  him.  His  silence  was 
ominous. 

Impatient  to  reach  his  castle  and  occupied  as  he  was  in  an 
effort  to  get  at  the  truth,  he  made  his  way  through  the  tor- 
tuous street  which  at  that  time  separated  the  cathedral  from 
the  chancellerie,  a  fine  building  but  recently  erected  by  the 
Chancellor  Juvenal  des  Ursins,  on  the  site  of  an  old  fortress 
given  by  Charles  VII.  to  that  faithful  servant  as  a  guerdon  for 
his  splendid  services.  This  street,  the  Rue  de  la  Scellerie,  so 
named  in  honor  of  the  office  of  the  Great  Seal  which  long 
stood  there,  connected  old  Tours  with  Chateauneuf,  where 
was  the  noted  abbey  of  Saint-Martin,  of  which  many  Kings 
had  been  glad  to  be  elected  canons.  After  long  discussions 
this  borough  had  been  incorporated  with  the  city  ;  this  had 
been  so  now  for  nearly  a  hundred  years. 

At  last  the  count  reached  the  Rue  du  Murier  in  which  his 
dwelling,  the  Hotel  de  Poitiers,  was  situated.  When  the 
escort  had  passed  the  gates  into  the  courtyard,  and  they  had 
been  closed  after  them,  a  profound  silence  pervaded  the  nar- 
row street  where  a  few  high  seigneurs  at  that  time  had  resi- 
dences; for  this  new  suburb  of  the  town  was  near  to  le  Plessis, 


312  MA1TRL    CORNELIUS. 

the  King's  usual  place  of  abode,  and  where  the  courtiers  when 
summoned  could  instantly  go.  The  last  house  in  the  street 
was  also  the  last  in  the  town.  It  belonged  to  Maitre  Cornelius 
Hoogworst,  an  old  merchant  of  Brabant,  to  whom  Louis  the 
Eleventh  gave  his  closest  confidences  in  the  various  financial 
dealings  which  his  cunning  policy  required  done  outside  his 
own  kingdom.  For  the  favorable  opportunity  it  gave  to  his 
tyranny  over  his  wife,  the  Comte  de  Saint-Vallier  had  taken 
the  mansion  next  to  the  house  of  Maitre  Cornelius. 

An  explanation  of  the  houses  will  show  the  advantages  of- 
fered the  jealous  husband.  It  was  easy  to  be  seen  that  the 
same  architect  had  built  both  of  them,  and  that  they  were 
destined  as  the  abodes  of  tyrants.  The  count's  house  had 
been  built  near  the  old  boundary  of  the  city,  and  was  inclosed 
in  a  garden.  On  the  side  next  the  embankment,  lately  con- 
structed by  Louis  XI.  between  Tours  and  le  Plessis,  dogs 
defended  the  entrance  to  the  premises  ;  while  on  the  east  they 
were  divided  from  the  nearest  houses  by  a  large  courtyard  ; 
on  the  west  backed  up  the  house  occupied  by  Maitre  Cornelius. 

Each  was  of  sinister  aspect  and  resembled  a  small  fort, 
which  could  be  well  defended  against  a  turbulent  populace. 
The  riots  and  civil  wars  of  this  period  amply  justified  these 
precautions.  The  windows  looking  on  the  street  were  strongly 
barred  with  iron,  and  shutters  of  the  same  material.  A  stone 
block  used  for  mounting  horseback  stood  close  to  the  porch. 

As  six  o'clock  was  striking  from  the  great  tower  of  the 
abbey  Saint-Martin,  the  lover  of  the  hapless  countess  walked 
past  the  de  Poitiers  hotel  and  paused  there  for  a  moment  to 
listen  for  any  sound  made  by  the  servants  in  the  lower  hall, 
who  were  taking  their  suppers.  Casting  a  glance  at  the  win- 
dow of  the  room  he  supposed  to  be  his  minstress',  he  went  on 
his  way  to  the  next  house.  Everywhere  on  his  way  the  young 
man  had  heard  the  roistering  of  the  jolly  holiday-makers,  in 
honor  of  the  day.  The  badly-joined  blinds  let  out  beams  of 
light,  the  chimneys  smoked,  the  pleasant  savor  of  roasting 


MAlTRE  CORNELIUS.  313 

meats  pervaded  the  town.  Religious  services  being  over,  the 
inhabitants  were  regaling  themselves  with  confused  mutterings 
of  satisfaction,  more  readily  imagined  than  described.  But 
here  deep  silence  reigned,  for  in  those  two  dwellings  lived 
two  passions  which  can  never  rejoice. 

Beyond  them  stretched  the  silent  country.  While  these 
two  dwellings  standing  beneath  the  towers  of  Saint-Martin, 
standing  apart  from  the  others  in  the  street,  at  the  crooked 
end  of  it,  seemed  afflicted  with  leprosy.  The  opposite  build- 
ing was  the  property  of  some  State  criminal  and  was  under 
the  ban  of  the  law.  No  young  man  but  would  have  been 
struck  by  the  great  contrast.  About,  as  he  was,  to  fling  him- 
self into  a  horribly  hazardous  enterprise,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  daring  young  noble  stopped  short  before  the 
door  of  the  silversmith-treasurer,  and  called  to  mind  the  many 
uncanny  tales  he  had  heard  of  the  life  of  Maitre  Cornelius — 
tales  which  had  caused  such  untoward  terror  to  the  countess. 

In  this  time  a  man  of  war,  a  lover  even,  every  man  trembled 
at  the  word  "magic."  Few  indeed  were  the  minds  whose 
imaginations  were  incredulous  of  occult  forces  and  tales  of 
the  marvelous.  This  lover  of  the  Comtesse  de  Saint-Vallier, 
one  of  the  daughters  of  Louis  XI.  by  Madame  de  Sassenage, 
and  born  in  Dauphine,  courageous  as  he  was  in  other  respects, 
was  apt  to  think  twice  before  entering  the  house  of  a  sorcerer. 

The  history  of  Maitre  Cornelius  Hoogworst  will  fully  ex- 
plain the  confidence  he  had  inspired  in  the  count,  the  terrible 
fear  of  the  countess,  and  the  hesitation  to  which  the  lover 
now  made  pause.  To  enable  the  nineteenth-century  reader 
to  clearly  understand  how  such  seeming  commonplace  events 
could  be  turned  into  something  supernatural,  and  to  cause 
them  to  share  the  dread  of  that  olden  time,  it  is  necessary  to 
interrupt  the  course  of  the  narrative  and  cast  a  glance  at  the 
preceding  life  and  career  of  Maitre  Cornelius. 

Cornelius    Hoogworst,    one    of   the   richest    merchants   of 


314  MAlTRE   CORNELIUS. 

Ghent,  having  drawn  upon  himself  the  resentment  of  Charles, 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  had  found  a  refuge  and  protection  at  the 
Court  of  Louis  XI.  The  King  was  well  aware  of  the  advan- 
tages he  could  gain  from  a  man  connected  with  all  the  prin- 
cipal houses  of  commerce  of  Flanders,  Venice,  and  the  East; 
he  naturalized  and  ennobled — by  royal  letters — and,  more, 
flattered  Maitre  Cornelius ;  a  most  rare  thing  with  that  mon- 
arch. Louis  XI.  pleased  the  Fleming  as  much  as  the  Fleming 
pleased  the  King.  Wily,  suspicious,  avaricious;  equally  poli- 
tic, equally  well  informed  ;  both  superior  to  their  time  ;  each 
understanding  the  other  marvelously;  they  discarded  and  re- 
sumed with  equal  facility,  the  one  his  conscience,  the  other 
his  religion ;  they  worshiped  the  same  Virgin — one  from  con- 
viction, the  other  from  policy ;  in  short,  if  we  may  trust  the 
jealous  statements  of  Olivier  le  Daim  and  Tristan,  the  King 
resorted  to  the  Fleming's  house  for  those  diversions  with 
which  King  Louis  XL  amused  himself.*  History  has  been  at 
the  pains  to  preserve  to  the  knowledge  of  posterity  the  licen- 
tious tastes  of  this  monarch  who  was  certainly  not  averse  to 
debauchery.  No  doubt  the  Fleming  derived  both  pleasure 
and  profit  in  lending  himself  to  the  caprices  and  indulgences 
of  his  royal  client. 

Cornelius  at  this  time  had  lived  for  nine  years  in  the  city 
of  Tours.  During  these  nine  years  extraordinary  events  had 
occurred  in  his  house,  which  had  made  him  the  object  of 
universal  execration.  On  his  arrival  he  had  spent  immense 
sums  in  order  to  safely  guard  his  treasures.  The  curious  in- 
ventions secretly  made  for  him  by  the  locksmiths  of  the  town, 
the  singular  precautions  he  took  to  bring  them  to  his  house  in 
a  way  to  compel  their  silence,  were  for  a  long  time  the  subject 
of  countless  tales,  which  furnished  the  evening  gossip  of  the 
Tourangeaux.  These  peculiar  devices  on  the  part  of  the  old 
man  caused  every  one  to  believe  him  the  possessor  of  Oriental 
wealth.  Consequently  the  story-tellers  of  that  district — the 
*  See  "  Dndl  Stories." 


MA1TKE   CORNELIUS.  315 

birthplace  of  French  romance — built  rooms  full  of  gold  and 
precious  stones  in  the  Fleming's  house,  not  omitting  to  ascribe 
this  fabulous  wealth  to  compacts  with  unholy  genii. 

Maitre  Cornelius  had  brought  with  him  from  Ghent  two 
Flemish  servants,  an  old  woman  and  a  young  apprentice ; 
the  latter,  youthful,  with  a  gentle,  attractive  appearance, 
served  as  his  secretary,  cashier,  factotum,  and  messenger. 
During  the  first  year  of  his  settlement  in  Tours  a  considerable 
robbery  was  effected  on  his  premises ;  judicial  inquiry  showed 
that  the  crime  must  have  been  committed  by  one  of  its  inmates. 
The  old  man  had  his  two  menservants  and  apprentice  put  in 
prison.  The  young  lad  was  weakly  and  he  died  under  the 
sufferings  of  the  "question,"*  still  protesting  his  innocence. 
The  two  men  confessed  the  crime  to  escape  torture ;  but  when 
asked  by  the  judge  where  the  stolen  property  could  be  found, 
they  kept  silence;  so,  after  renewed  tortures,  they  were  tried, 
condemned,  and  hung.  On  their  way  to  the  gallows  they  de- 
clared themselves  innocent,  as  is  the  custom  of  all  men  when 
about  to  be  executed. 

For  many  a  day  the  town  of  Tours  talked  over  this  singular 
business ;  but  the  criminals  were  Flemish,  and  the  interest  in 
their  unhappy  fate,  and  that  of  the  young  clerk,  soon  evapor- 
ated. In  those  days,  wars  and  seditions  supplied  continual 
excitement,  and  each  day's  new  drama  eclipsed  that  of  the 
preceding  night. 

More  affected  by  the  loss  of  his  pelf  than  by  the  death  of 
his  three  servants,  Mattre  Cornelius  lived  alone  in  the  house 
with  the  old  Flemish  woman,  his  sister.  From  the  King  he 
obtained  the  privilege  to  use  the  royal  couriers  for  his  private 
affairs  ;  sold  his  mules  to  a  muleteer  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
lived  thenceforward  in  the  deepest  solitude,  seeing  no  one  but 
the  King,  and  transacting  his  business  through  the  medium 
of  Jews,  who,  shrewd  arithmeticians,  served  him  faithfully  and 
well  for  the  sake  of  his  so-powerful  interest. 
•  Torture  to  induce  confession. 


316  MAITRE    CORNELIUS. 

Some  time  after  this  affair,  the  King  himself  placed  with 
his  old  torfonnoir  a  young  orphan  in  whom  he  took  much 
interest.  Louis  XI.  called  Maitre  Cornelius  by  that  obsolete 
term,  familiarly,  which  under  the  reign  of  Saint-Louis  meant 
a  usurer,  a  collector  of  taxes,  a  man  who  squeezed  money  out 
of  folk  by  extortion.  The  term  tortionnaire,  which  is  a  legal 
term  still  extant,  explains  the  old  French  word  torfonnier, 
and  which  is  often  spelled  tortionneur.  The  poor  young  boy 
devoted  himself  to  the  interest  of  his  master,  the  old  Fleming, 
and  succeeded  in  winning  his  encomiums  and  getting  into  his 
good  graces.  One  winter's  night  the  diamonds  placed  in 
Cornelius'  keeping  by  the  King  of  England  as  security  for  a 
hundred  thousand  crowns  were  stolen ;  suspicion  naturally 
fell  on  the  poor  orphan.  Louis  XI.  was  the  more  severe  with 
him  because  he  had  vouched  for  the  boy's  fidelity.  So,  after 
a  very  brief  examination  by  the  grand  provost,  the  unfortunate 
youth  was  taken  out  and  hanged.  After  that  it  was  a  long 
time  before  any  one  dared  to  go  tc  learn  the  art  of  banking 
and  exchange  from  Maitre  Cornelius. 

In  the  course  of  time,  however,  it  came  that  two  young  men 
of  the  town,  Tourangeaux,  men  of  honor,  eager  to  make  their 
fortunes,  took  service  with  the  silversmith.  Large  robberies 
coincided  with  the  admission  of  the  two  youths  into  the 
house.  The  circumstances  of  these  crimes,  the  manner  of  the 
perpetration,  plainly  enough  showed  some  collusion  between 
the  thieves  and  the  inmates  of  the  house  ;  how  was  it  possible 
that  the  new-comers  should  escape  accusation?  Become  by 
this  time  more  than  ever  suspicious  and  vindictive,  the  old 
Fleming  laid  the  matter  before  the  King,  who  placed  the  case 
in  the  hands  of  his  grand  provost.  A  trial  was  promptly  had, 
and  more  quickly  finished.  Each  was  more  promptly  exe- 
cuted. 

But  the  inhabitants  of  Tours,  in  their  patriotism,  secretly 
blamed  Tristan  1'Hermite  for  unseemly  haste.  Guilty  or  not 
£':ilty,  the  young  fellow-townsmen  were  looked  upon  as  vie- 


MAITRE   CORNELIUS.  317 

iims,  and  Cornelius  as  an  executioner.  The  two  families  thus 
thrown  into  mourning  were  of  much  esteem ;  their  complaints 
secured  much  sympathy,  and,  little  by  little,  they  succeeded 
in  making  it  come  to  be  common  belief  that  all  the  victims 
sent  to  the  scaffold  by  the  King's  silversmith  were  innocent. 
Some  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  cruel  miser  imitated  the 
King  and  sought  to  put  terror  and- the  gibbet  between  himself 
and  the  world  of  men  ;  others  there  were  who  declared  he  had 
never  been  robbed  at  all — that  these  terrible  executions  were 
brought  about  as  the  result  of  cold  calculation ;  that  all  he 
cared  about  was  to  be  relieved  of  all  care  for  his  treasure. 

The  first  effect  of  these  rumors  was  to  effectually  isolate 
Maitre  Cornelius.  The  good  people  of  Tours  treated  him  as 
they  would  have  done  a  leper;  called  him  the  "tortionnaire," 
and  named  his  house  Malemaison — House  of  Evil.  Even  if 
the  Fleming  could  have  found  strangers  to  the  town  bold 
enough  to  enter  his  service,  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  would 
have  prevented  by  their  warnings.  The  most  favorable  impres- 
sion had  of  Maitre  Cornelius  was  that  of  those  who  considered 
him  as  being  merely  baneful  and  sinister.  Some  he  inspired 
with  instinctive  dread  ;  others  were  impressed  with  the  power 
that  is  always  paid  to  great  wealth  and  influence  ;  to  some  he 
had  the  fascination  of  mystery.  His  mode  of  life,  his  counte- 
nance, and  the  favor  of  the  King  seemed  to  justify  all  the 
rumors  of  which  he  was  the  subject. 

After  the  death  of  his  persecutor,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
Cornelius  traveled  much  in  foreign  lands ;  during  his  absence 
the  King  caused  his  house  to  be  patrolled  by  a  company  of 
his  Scottish  Guard.  This  royal  solicitude  it  was  that  made  the 
courtiers  believe  that  Maitre  Cornelius  had  bequeathed  his 
property  to  Louis  XI.  When  he  wac  home  it  was  but  rarely 
that  he  left  his  premises;  the  gentlemen  of  the  Court  frequently 
visited  him,  and  he  loaned  them  money  rather  liberally,  though 
he  was  very  capricious  about  so  doing.  On  certain  days  he 
refused  them  a  sou ;  the  next  day  lie  would  offer  large  sums — 


318  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

always,  though,  at  high  interest  and  on  undoubtedly  good 
security.  He  was  a  good  Catholic,  went  regularly  to  the  ser- 
vices, and  always  attended  the  earliest  mass  at  Saint-Martin's ; 
and  as  he  had  purchased  there  a  chapel  in  perpetuity,  as  else- 
where, he  was  separated  even  in  church  from  other  Christians. 
A  popular  proverb  of  that  day,  and  was  long  remembered, 
was  the  saying:  "  You  passed  in  front  of  the  usurer;  evil  will 
befall  you."  To  pass  in  front  of  the  Fleming  explained  every 
misfortune ;  it  explained  all  sudden  pains  and  evil,  involuntary 
depression,  bad  turns  of  fortune  among  the  people  of  Tours. 
Even  at  Court  the  people  most  oftener  than  not  attributed  to 
Cornelius  that  fatal  influence  wnich  Italian,  Spanish,  and 
Asiatic  superstition  has  termed  the  "  Evil  Eye." 

Only  for  the  terrible  power  of  Louis  XL,  which  overspread 
his  house  like  a  mantle,  the  populace  on  the  least  pretext 
would  have  utterly  demolished  la  Malemaison — that  "evil 
house"  in  the  Rue  du  Murier.  And  yet  it  was  Cornelius 
that  was  the  first  to  plant  mulberry  trees  in  Tours,  and  at 
that  time  the  Tourangeaux  looked  upon  him  as  their  good 
genie.  Who  may  depend  on  popular  favor? 

A  few  seigneurs  having  met  Maitre  Cornelius  on  his  jour- 
neys out  of  France  had  been  astonished  at  his  friendliness  and 
good-humor.  At  Tours  he  was  always  gloomy  and  absent- 
minded,  but  yet  he  returned  there.  Some  inexplicable  attrac- 
tion brought  him  back  to  his  dismal  house  in  the  Rue  du 
Murier.  Like  a  snail,  whose  life  is  so  strongly  a  part  of  its 
shell,  he  admitted  to  the  King  that  he  was  not  at  his  ease 
elsewhere ;  he  only  found  it  under  the  bolts  and  time-worn 
stone  of  his  little  bastille  ;  and  yet  he  was  well  aware  that 
should  the  King  die  it  would  be  the  most  dangerous  spot  on 
earth  for  him. 

"The  devil  is  amusing  himself  at  the  expense  of  our  crony 
the  torfonnier"  said  Louis  XI.  to  his  barber,  a  few  days  be- 
fore the  festival  of  All-Saints.  "  He  says  he  has  been  robbed 
again,  but  he  can't  hang  anybody  this  time,  unless  he  hangs 


MAJTRE   CORNELIUS.  319 

himself.  The  old  vagabond  came  and  asked  me  if  I  had  not 
chanced  to  carry  off  a  string  of  rubies  that  he  had  intended 
selling  to  me.  'Pasgues-Dieu !  I  don't  steal  what  I  have 
only  to  take,'  said  I." 

"  And  was  he  afraid  ?  "   asked  the  barber. 

"  Misers  are  only  afraid  of  one  thing,"  responded  the  King. 
"  My  chum  the  tor$onnicr  knows  very  well  that  I  shall  not 
plunder  him  for  nothing ;  otherwise  I  were  unjust,  and  I  have 
never  yet  done  anything  but  what  is  just  and  necessary." 

"And  yet  that  old  bandit  overcharges  you,"  replied  the 
barber. 

"You  only  wish  he  did,  don't  you?"  answered  the  King, 
with  a  sinister  look  at  the  barber. 

"  By  Mahomet's  belly,  Sire,  the  inheritance  would  be  a 
noble  one,  between  you,  me,  and  the  devil." 

"  There,  there  !"  said  the  King.  "Don't  put  bad  ideas 
into  my  head.  My  crony  is  a  more  faithful  man  than  many 
whose  fortunes  I  have  made — it  may  be  it  is  because  he  owes 
me  nothing." 

For  the  two  last  years,  Maitre  Cornelius  had  lived  entirely 
alone  with  his  old  sister,  who  was  believed  to  be  a  witch.  A 
tailor  who  lived  hard  by  declared  that  he  had  frequently  seen 
her  at  night,  on  the  roof  the  house,  looking  out  for  the  witches' 
Sabbath.  This  seemed  the  more  extraordinary,  as  it  was  known 
to  be  the  miser's  custom  to  lock  up  his  sister  in  her  bedroom 
when  night  came,  the  windows  of  which  were  barred  with 
iron. 

As  he  grew  older,  Cornelius,  always  afraid  of  being  robbed 
or  duped  by  men,  came  to  hate  everybody  but  the  King,  whom 
he  highly  esteemed.  He  had  sunk  into  a  state  of  abject  mis- 
anthropy ;  but,  like  most  misers,  his  passion  for  gold,  the 
assimilation,  as  it  were,  of  that  metal  with  his  very  substance, 
became  more  and  more  complete,  while  age  but  intensified 
it.  He  was  even  suspicious  of  his  sister,  though  she  was  a 
shade  the  more  miserly  and  rapacious  than  her  brother,  and 


320  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

really  surpassed  him  in  penurious  inventiveness.  Their  way 
of  life  was  a  mysterious  enigma.  The  old  woman  rarely  took 
bread  of  the  baker ;  so  seldom  she  appeared  in  the  market, 
that  the  least  credulous  of  the  townsfolk  at  last  attributed  to 
her  some  diabolical  knowledge  of  a  secret  for  maintaining  life. 
Others  there  were  who  dabbled  in  alchemy  that  declared  that 
Maitre  Cornelius  possessed  the  power  of  making  gold.  Men  of 
science  stated  that  he  had  discovered  the  Universal  Panacea. 
According  to  most  of  the  country  people,  when  they  spoke  of 
him,  Cornelius  was  a  chimerical  being,  and  a  number  came  to 
view  his  house  out  of  mere  curiosity. 

The  young  seigneur,  whom  we  left  in  front  of  that  house, 
looked  about  him,  first  at  the  Hotel  de  Poitiers,  the  home  of 
his  mistress,  and  then  at  the  Malemaison.  The  moonbeams 
shed  their  light  on  the  prominent  parts,  giving  a  tint  of  light 
and  shadow  in  the  carvings  and  reliefs.  The  caprices  of  this 
white  light  gave  a  sinister  expression  to  both  edifices  ;  it 
seemed  as  if  Nature  had  tried  to  encourage  the  superstitious 
dread  that  hung  around  the  place. 

The  young  man  called  to  mind  the  many  traditions  which 
made  Cornelius  such  a  strange  and  formidable  person.  Though 
the  violence  of  his  passion  still  held  him  to  the  decision  of 
entering  that  house,  and  to  stay  there  long  enough  to  accom- 
plish his  purpose,  he  yet  hesitated  at  taking  the  final  step,  all 
the  time  aware  that  he  would  at  last  do  this.  But  what  man 
is  there  who,  in  a  crisis  of  his  life,  does  not  willingly  pay  heed 
to  presentiments,  and  gyrate,  as  it  were,  over  the  precipice  of 
uncertainty  ?  A  lover  worthy  of  his  love,  the  young  man 
feared  he  might  perish  before  the  love  of  the  countess  should 
crown  his  life. 

His  mental  deliberation  was  so  painfully  absorbing  that  he  did 
not  feel  the  cold  wind  that  whistled  round  his  legs  and  against 
the  buildings.  On  entering  that  house  he  mu>t.  iay  aside  his 
name,  as  he  already  had  laid  aside  the  handsome  garb  of  a 
noble.  In  case  of  disaster  he  would  be  unable  to  claim  the 


MA!TRE  CORNELIUS.  321 

privileges  of  his  rank  or  the  protection  of  his  friends  without 
destroying  the  Countess  of  Saint- Vallier.  If  her  old  husband 
suspected  her  of  having  a  lover  paying  nocturnal  visits,  he  was 
quite  capable  of  roasting  her  alive  in  an  iron  cage  by  a  slow 
fire,  or  of  killing  her  by  degrees  in  the  depths  of  some  dank 
dungeon. 

Looking  over  his  shabby  clothes  in  which  he  was  disguised, 
the  young  man  felt  ashamed  of  his  appearance.  His  black 
leather  belt,  his  heavy  shoes,  ribbed  hose,  frieze  breeches,  and 
his  gray  woolen  doublet  made  him  look  like  the  clerk  of  some 
poor  devil  of  a  justice.  To  a  nobleman  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury it  was  like  to  death  itself  to  play  the  part  of  a  mean 
burgher,  and  renounce  the  privileges  of  his  rank.  But  yet, 
to  climb  the  roof  of  the  house  where  his  mistress  was  weeping  ; 
to  descend  the  chimney  or  crawl  along  the  cornice  from  gutter 
to  gutter  to  the  window  of  her  room  ;  to  risk  his  life  if  haply 
he  might  sit  by  her  side  before  a  glowing  fire,  during  the 
slumber  of  a  dangerous  husband,  whose  every  snore  would  add 
to  their  rapture  ;  to  defy  both  heaven  and  earth  in  exchanging 
the  most  audacious  embrace  ;  to  say  no  word  which  would  not 
be  the  certainty  of  death,  or  at  least  of  bloody  combat,  if 
overheard — these  all-entrancing  visions,  with  the  romantic 
perils  of  the  adventure,  made  the  decision  of  the  young  man. 

However  slight  the  guerdon  of  his  endeavor  might  be,  could 
he  but  once  more  kiss  the  hand  of  his  lady,  he  would  venture 
all,  urged  on  by  the  peril-loving,  passionate  spirit  of  his  age. 
Never  for  one  moment  did  he  think  that  the  countess  would 
refuse  him  the  sweetest  reward  of  love  in  the  midst  of  such 
mortal  danger.  The  adventure  was  too  perilous,  too  impos- 
sible, not  to  be  attempted  to  carry  out. 

Suddenly  every  bell  in  the  town  rang  out  the  curfew — a 
custom  elsewhere  fallen  into  desuetude,  but  was  still  observed 
in  the  country — for  in  the  provinces  customs  die  slowly. 
Though  the  lights  were  not  extinguished,  the  watchman 
placed  the  chains  across  the  streets.  Many  doors  were  barred 
21 


322  MA!TRE  CORNELIUS. 

and  bolted ;  the  steps  of  a  few  belated  citizens  were  heard  in 
the  distance,  attended  by  their  servants,  armed  to  the  teeth 
and  bearing  lanterns.  Soon  the  town,  garroted,  as  .it  were, 
seemed  to  be  slumbering,  fearing  naught  of  robbers  and  male- 
factors except  by  the  roofs.  At  that  time  the  roofs  of  houses 
were  like  a  highway,  so  thronged  were  they  at  night. 

The  streets  were  so  narrow  in  the  country  towns,  and  even 
in  Paris,  that  robbers  could  jump  from  the  roofs  on  one  side 
on  to  those  of  the  other.  This  perilous  game  was  once  the 
delight  of  King  Charles  IX.  in  his  youth,  if  we  may  put 
faith  in  the  chronicles  of  his  day. 

Fearing  that  he  might  be  too  late  in  presenting  himself  to 
the  old  Maitre  Cornelius,  the  young  noble  now  went  up  to 
the  Malemaison,  intending  to  knock  at  the  door,  when,  on 
looking  at  it,  his  attention  was  excited  by  a  kind  of  vision, 
which  the  writers  of  that  day  would  have  termed  devilish 
(jcornuc],  perhaps  with  reference  to  horns  and  hoofs.  He 
rubbed  his  eyes  to  clear  them,  a  thousand  diverse  ideas  cours- 
ing through  his  mind  the  while  at  the  spectacle  before  him. 
On  each  side  of  the  door  was  a  face  framed  between  the  bars 
in  a  kind  of  loophole.  At  first  he  took  these  faces  to  be 
grotesque  gargoyles  carved  in  stone,  so  angular,  so  distorted, 
exaggerated,  motionless,  and  discolored  were  they ;  but  pres- 
ently the  cold  wind  and  the  moonlight  enabled  him  to  detect 
the  thin  white  mist  which  living  breath  sent  out  from  two 
blue  noses ;  at .  last  he  could  make  out  in  each  hollow  face, 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  eyebrows,  a  pair  of  blue  china  eyes 
casting  fire  like  those  of  a  wolf  crouching  in  the  brushwood 
when  it  hears  the  bay  of  the  hounds  in  full  cry.  The  uneasy 
gleam  of  those  eyes  was  turned  on  him  so  fixedly  that  for  quite 
a  minute's  space  he  felt  like  a  bird  put  up  by  a  pointer-dog ; 
a  fever-spasm  struck  his  soul,  but  it  was  at  once  repressed. 
The  two  faces,  strained  and  suspicious,  were  beyond  a  doubt 
those  of  Cornelius  and  his  sister. 

The  young  rrjan  pretended  to  be  gazing  around  him.  as  if 


MAl'lRE    CORNELIUS.  323 

in  uncertainty  as  to  his  whereabouts,  and  to  be  searching  for 
a  dwelling  the  address  of  which  might  be  on  the  card  he  took 
from  his  pocket  and  was  trying  to  read  by  the  moonlight ; 
then  straight  to  the  door  he  walked  and  struck  three  blows 
upon  it,  which  echoed  within  as  though  it  had  been  the  en- 
trance to  a  cavern.  A  faint  light  became  visible  beneath  the 
door,  and  an  eye  was  seen  at  a  small  and  strongly  barred 
wicket-gate. 

"Who  is  there?" 

"A  friend,  sent  by  Oosterlinck,  of  Brussels." 

"  What  do  you  want?  " 

"To  come  in." 

"Your  name?" 

"Philippe  Goulenoire." 

"  Have  you  credentials  ?  " 

"  Here  they  are." 

"Put  them  in  through  the  box." 

"Where  is  it?" 

"To  your  left." 

Philippe  Goulenoire  put  the  letter  through  the  slit  of  an 
iron  box  above  which  was  a  loophole. 

"  The  devil  !  "  thought  he.  "It  is  very  evident  that  the 
King  comes  here,  as  they  say  he  does  ;  he  could  not  take 
more  precautions  at  le  Plessis." 

For  over  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  waited  on  the  street.  At 
the  end  of  that  time  he  heard  the  old  man  say  to  his  sister  : 

"  Close  the  traps  of  the  door." 

A  clanging  of  chains  sounded  from  within.  Philippe  heard 
the  bolts  slide,  the  locks  creak,  and  finally  a  small,  low  door, 
iron-bound,  opened  just  the  smallest  chink  through  which  a 
man  could  press.  At  the  risk  of  tearing  his  clothes,  Philippe 
squeezed  rather  than  walked  himself  into  la  Malemaison.  A 
toothless  old  woman  with  a  hatchet  face,  eyebrows  like  the 
handle  of  a  caldron,  who  could  not  have  put  a  nut  between 
her  nose  and  chin  so  near  were  they  together — a  pallid,  hag- 


324  MA/TRE   CORNELIUS. 

gard  creature,  her  hollow  temples  made  up  only,  or  so  it 
seemed,  of  bones  and  sinews — silently  preceded  the  stranger 
into  a  lower  chamber,  Cornelius  prudently  following  him. 

"  Seat  yourself  there,"  said  she  to  Philippe,  pointing  out  a 
three-legged  stool,  standing  beside  a  huge,  carved  fireplace  of 
stone  ;  the  hearth  though  was  fireless. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace  was  a  walnut-wood  table 
with  twisted  legs,  on  which  were  an  egg  on  a  plate  and  ten 
or  a  dozen  of  little  bread-sops,  hard  and  dry,  each  cut  with 
parsimonious  exactitude.  Two  stools  placed  beside  the  table, 
on  one  of  which  the  old  woman  seated  herself,  showed  that 
the  miserly  pair  were  about  supping. 

Cornelius  went  to  the  door  and  closed  two  iron  shutters,  thus 
most  likely  securing  the  looped  windows  through  which  they 
had  been  gazing  out  on  the  street ;  then  he  returned  to  his 
seat.  Philippe  Goulenoire,  as  he  called  himself,  next  saw  the 
brother  and  sister  dipping  each  their  sops  in  turns  into  the 
egg,  and  with  the  perfect  gravity  and  precision  that  soldiers 
use  in  dipping  their  spoons  in  regular  rotation  into  the  mess- 
pan.  This  performance  was  gone  through  in  perfect  silence. 
But  as  he  ate  Cornelius  studied  the  mock  apprentice  with  as 
much  carefulness  and  shrewdness  as  if  he  had  been  gold  coin 
in  the  balance. 

Philippe  felt,  as  it  might  be,  an  icy  cloak  had  fallen  on  his 
shoulders,  he  was  tempted  to  look  around  ;  but  with  the  cir- 
cumspection born  of  an  amorous  adventure  he  was  careful  not 
to  glance,  even  furtively,  at  the  walls,  for  he  was  well  aware 
that  so  suspicious  a  person  as  Cornelius  would  not  house  an 
inquisitive  inmate.  He  restricted  himself  to  the  modest  con- 
templation of  first  the  egg,  then  the  old  woman,  and  anon  his 
future  master. 

Louis  XL's  silversmith-treasurer  resembled  that  monarch. 
He  had  even  caught  the  same  tricks  of  expression,  as  often 
happens  where  persons  dwell  in  a  kind  of  quasi  intimacy. 
The  thick  eyebrows  of  the  Fleming  almost  concealed  his  eyes, 


MA/TRE   CORNELIUS.  325 

but  by  raising  them  a  little  he  could  flash  out  a  glance  that  was 
bright,  penetrating,  and  full  of  power,  the  look  of  men  habit- 
uated to  silence,  and  to  whom  concentration  of  thought  is 
familiar.  His  thin  lips,  finely  furrowed  with  vertical  lines, 
gave  him  an  air  of  keen  subtlety.  The  lower  part  of  the 
face  bore  a  vague  resemblance  to  a  fox ;  but  a  lofty,  pro- 
minent forehead,  deeply  indented  with  wrinkles,  bespoke 
great  and  noble  qualities  and  nobility  of  soul — one  whose 
flights  had  been  degraded  by  experience  and  whence  the  cruel 
lessons  of  life  had  driven  it  back  into  the  farthest  recesses  of 
his  strange  humanity.  Most  certainly  he  was  no  ordinary 
miser ;  his  passion  covered,  no  doubt,  the  highest  pleasures 
and  secret  conceptions. 

"  At  what  rate  are  Venetian  sequins  going?"  he  abruptly 
asked  his  to  be  apprentice. 

"Three-fourths  at  Brussels;  one  at  Ghent." 

"-What  is  the  freight  on  the  Scheldt?  " 

"Three  sous  parisis." 

"  Anything  new  in  Ghent?  " 

"The  brother  of  Lieven  d'Herde  is  ruined." 

"Ah!" 

After  giving  vent  to  this  exclamation,  the  old  man  spread 
the  skirts  of  his  dahnation  over  his  knees — this  was  a  sort  of 
robe  made  of  black  velvet,  open  in  front,  wide  sleeves,  no 
collar,  the  sumptuous  material  being  much  worn  and  shiny. 
This  corpse  of  a  magnificent  costume  he  had  formerly  worn 
as  president  of  the  tribunal  of  the  Parchons — a  position 
which  had  earned  him  the  enmity  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy — 
was  now  but  a  mere  rag. 

Philippe  was  not  cold,  he  perspired  in  the  harness  he  had 
assumed,  dreading  further  questioning.  Thus  far  the  brief 
information  he  had  extracted  the  day  before,  from  a  Jew 
whose  life  he  had  saved,  had  been  enough — thanks  to  his 
good  memory  and  to  the  Jew's  perfect  understanding  of  the 
customs  of  Maitre  Cornelius  and  his  habits  and  manners. 


326  MA1TRE    CORNELIUS. 

But  the  young  man,  who  in  his  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  had 
feared  nothing,  now  began  to  perceive  the  difficulties  of  his 
undertaking.  The  solemn,  grave  manner  of  the  Fleming 
reacted  upon  himself;  he  felt  himself  under  lock  and  key  and 
remembered  that  the  urbane  Grand  Provost  Tristan  and  his 
rope  obeyed  the  behest  of  Maitre  Cornelius. 

"Have  you  supped?"  asked  the  miser  in  a  tone  which 
implied  an  affirmative  answer. 

The  old  maid,  despite  her  brother's  tone,  trembled  as  she 
looked  at  the  new  inmate,  as  if  gauging  the  capacity  of  the 
stomach  she  might  have  to  fill,  then  said  with  a  specious 
grin: 

"  You  do  not  belie  your  name ;  your  hair  and  mustache  are 
both  black  as  the  devil's  tail." 

"  I  have  supped,"  said  he. 

"Well,  then,"  replied  the  usurer,  "  you  can  come  and  see 
me  again  to-morrow.  I  have  had  no  apprentice  for  a  number 
years.  Beside,  in  the  night  comes  wisdom." 

"Hey!  by  Saint-Bavon,  monsieur,  I  am  from  Flanders; 
I  know  not  one  soul  in  this  place ;  the  chains  are  up  in  the 
streets:  I  shall  be  thrown  into  prison.  However,"  he  went 
on,  alarmed  at  his  own  temerity,  "  if  it  suits  your  good  plea- 
sure, of  course  I  will  go." 

The  oath  had  a  singular  effect  on  the  old  man. 

"  Come,  then,  by  Saint-Bavon  !     You  shall  sleep  here." 

"But "  began  his  sister. 

"Silence,"  said  Cornelius.  "In  his  letter  Oosterlinrk 
says  that  he  will  be  answerable  for  this  young  man.  Yon 
well  know,"  he  whispered  in  his  sister's  ear,  "that  we  have 
a  hundred  thousand  livres  here  belonging  to  Oosterlinck.  Is 
that  not  security  enough  ?  " 

"And  suppose  he  steals  the  Bavarian  jewels?  He  looks 
more  like  a  thief  than  a  Fleming." 

"  Hark  !  "   said  the  old  man  listening  attentively. 

The    two   misers   listened.      An    instant  after  the  "hark" 


MA1TRE    CORNELIUS.  327 

uttered  by  Cornelius,  a  noise  caused  by  men's  footsteps  echoed 
in  the  distance  on  the  other  side  of  the  town  moat. 

"  The  guard  of  le  Plessis  is  on  its  rounds,"  said  the  sister. 

"Give  me  the  key  to  the  apprentices'  room,"  Cornelius 
continued. 

The  old  woman  was  about  to  take  up  the  lamp. 

"  What,  do  you  mean  to  leave  us  alone  together  without  a 
light?"  exclaimed  Cornelius  in  a  voice  eloquent  with  some 
hidden  meaning.  "Old  as  you  are  you  ought  to  be  able  to 
see  in  the  dark.  It  is  not  so  difficult  to  find  a  key." 

The  sister  evidently  understood  the  meaning  hidden  in 
these  words  and  left  the  room.  As  he  looked  at  this  singular 
creature,  as  she  made  her  way  toward  the  door,  Philippe  was 
able  to  hide  the  glance  from  Cornelius  that  he  cast  around 
the  room.  It  was  wainscoted  half-way  up  with  oak,  the  walls 
were  hung  with  yellow  leather  stamped  out  with  black  arabes- 
ques ;  but  what  most  struck  the  young  man  was  a  match-lock 
musket  with  its  long  spring  dagger  attached.  This  then  new 
and  terrible  weapon  lay  close  to  Cornelius. 

"  How  do  you  expect  to  earn  your  living  with  me?  "  asked 
the  miser. 

"  I  have  but  little  money,"  said  Philippe,  "  but  I  know 
some  good  business  schemes.  If  you  give  me  but  one  sou  on 
every  mark  I  make  you,  I  shall  be  satisfied." 

"  A  sou  !  a  sou,"  spoke  out  the  miser,  "  why  that's  a  great 
deal  !  " 

At  this  time  reentered  the  old  hag  with  the  key. 

"  Come,"  said  Cornelius  to  Philippe. 

The  pair  went  out  beneath  the  portico  and  mounted  a 
spiral  stairway  of  stone  the  circular  well  of  which  rose  through 
a  turret  by  the  side  of  the  room  they  had  occupied.  On  the 
second  floor  the  young  man  came  to  a  stand. 

"Nay,  nay,"  cried  Cornelius,  "the  devil!  why,  this  is 
the  cranny  in  which  the  King  enjoys  himself." 

The  architect  had  constructed  the  room  used  for  the  ap- 


328  MA1TRE   CORXLUUS. 

prentices'  lodging  under  the  pointed  roof  of  the  turret  up 
which  the  stairs  wound.  It  was  a  little  circular  room,  the 
walls  of  stone,  cold  and  bare  of  ornament.  The  tower  stood 
in  the  centre  of  the  facade  on  the  courtyard,  which  was  like 
all  country  courtyards — narrow  and  dark.  At  the  farther  end, 
through  an  iron  grating,  could  be  seen  a  wretched  garden,  in 
which  only  the  mulberries  grew  that  Cornelius  had  introduced. 
The  young  noble  could  take  in  these  details  through  the  loop- 
holes of  the  turret,  the  moon,  luckily,  casting  a  brilliant 
light. 

A  cot,  a  stool,  an  unmatched  pitcher  and  basin,  and  a  flimsy 
chest  comprised  the  furniture  in  the  room.  The  light  could 
only  enter  through  little  square  slits,  placed  at  intervals  in  the 
wall  ot  the  tower,  corresponding,  no  doubt,  to  the  ornamenta- 
tion of  the  outside. 

"Here  is  your  lodging,"  said  Cornelius;  "  it  is  plain  and 
substantial,  and  contains  all  that  is  needed  for  sleep.  Good- 
night !  Do  not  leave  this  room  as  the  others  did." 

After  giving  his  apprentice  a  last  look  fraught  with  divers 
meanings,  Cornelius  double-locked  the  door,  took  away  the 
key  and  went  down  the  stairs,  leaving  the  young  fellow  as 
much  befooled  as  a  bell-founder  who  on  opening  his  mould 
finds  it  empty.  Alone,  without  a  light,  seated  on  a  stool  in 
this  small  garret-room  from  which  so  many  of  his  predecessors 
had  gone  to  the  gallows,  the  young  noble  felt  like  a  wild 
beast  caught  in  a  trap.  He  jumped  on  to  the  stool  and  stood 
on  tip-toe  to  peer  out  of  one  of  the  little  slits  through  which 
shone  a  faint  glimmer  of  light.  From  thence  he  could  see 
the  Loire,  the  lovely  slopes  of  Saint-Cyr,  the  sombre  splen- 
deur  of  le  Plessis,  where  a  few  lights  were  gleaming  in  the 
deep  recesses  of  the  windows.  Farther  away  lay  the  beautiful 
meadows  of  Touraine  and  the  silvery  stream  of  the  great  river. 
Every  point  of  this  lovely  landscape  wore,  just  then,  a  myste- 
rious charm  ;  the  windows,  the  waters,  the  roofs  of  the  houses 
glistened  like  diamonds  in  the  trembling  rays  of  the  moon. 


MA1TRE   CORXX.LWS.  329 

The  soul  of  the  young  noble  could  not  altogether  repress 
some  tender^  sweet  and  sad  emotions. 

"  Suppose  this  is  my  last  farewell !  "  said  he  to  himself. 

As  he  stood  there,  he  already  felt  the  terrible  emotion  his 
adventure  promised  him  ;  he  yielded  to  the  fears  of  a  prisoner 
who  still  retains  a  gleam  of  hope.  His  mistress  brightened 
each  difficulty.  To  him  she  was  no  more  a  woman,  she  be- 
came a  supernatural  being  seen  in  the  incense  vapors  of  his 
hot  desire.  A  feeble  cry,  which  seemed  to  come  from  the 
Hotel  de  Poitiers,  restored  him  to  reason  and  to  a  realization 
of  his  situation.  He  threw  himself  on  his  bed  to  meditate  on 
his  course ;  soon  he  heard  a  slight  rustling  sound  which  came 
from  the  spiral  staircase.  He  listened  with  all  his  ears,  when 
the  whispered  words:  "He  is  in  bed,"  uttered  by  the  old 
woman,  came  to  his  ear. 

By  an  accident  of  which  the  architect  was  ignorant,  the 
lightest  sound  on  the  stairway  was  echoed  in  the  room  of  the 
apprentices,  so  the  ostensible  apprentice  did  not  miss  a  single 
movement  of  the  old  miser  and  his  sister,  who  were  spying 
upon  him.  '  He  undressed,  got  into  bed,  and  pretended  to 
sleep ;  during  the  time  the  couple  remained  on  the  stairs  he 
was  employed  in  devising  means  to  escape  his  prison  and  his 
entry  of  the  Hotel  de  Poitiers. 

About  ten  o'clock  Cornelius  and  his  sister,  convinced  that 
the  new  inmate  was  asleep,  retired  to  their  own  rooms. 

The  young  man  paid  careful  attention  to  the  sound  they 
made  in  thus  doing,  and  thought  he  could  guess  as  to  the 
rooms  they  each  occupied  ;  they  must,  he  thought,  occupy  the 
whole  of  the  second  floor. 

Like  all  the  houses  of  that  date,  this  floor  was  next  below 
the  roof,  from  which  its  dormer  windows  projected,  which 
were  adorned  with  tops  of  richly  sculptured  stone.  The  roof 
was  bordered  with  a  kind  of  balustrade,  which  concealed  the 
gutters  for  the  descent  of  the  rain-water  which  gargoyles,  like 
crocodiles'  heads,  discharged  into  the  street.  The  youth,  who 


330  MA1TRE   CORN&L1US, 

had  so  carefully  studied  his  bearings  like  as  a  cat  might  cun- 
ningly have  done,  believed  he  could  make  his  way  from  the 
tower  to  the  roof,  thence  to  Madame  de  Vallier's  room  by  the 
waterspouts  and  gargoyles;  but  he  had  not  counted  on  the 
narrowness  of  the  windows  in  the  turret ;  it  was  a  manifest 
impossibility  that  he  could  pass  through  them.  He  now  made 
up  his  mind  to  get  upon  the  roof  of  the  house  through  the 
window  of  the  staircase  on  the  second  story.  To  accomplish 

this  bold  project  he  must  have  egress  from  his  room and 

Cornelius  had  carried  off  the  key  ! 

The  young  noble  had  taken  the  precaution  of  bringing  with 
him,  concealed  under  his  clothes,  one  of  those  poinards  used 
at  that  time  for  dealing  the  coup-de-gr&ce  in  a  duel,  when 
the  vanquished  adversary  begged  the  victor  to  dispatch  him. 
This  horrible  weapon  had  one  edge  sharpened  like  a  razor, 
and  the  other  one  was  toothed  like  a  saw,  but  the  teeth  run- 
ning in  the  reverse  direction  to  that  by  which  it  would  enter 
the  body  in  the  thrust.  The  youth  purposed  to  use  this  latter 
edge  as  a  saw  to  cut  the  wood  through  around  the  lock.  Hap- 
pily for  him  the  staple  of  the  lock  was  attached  to  the  outside 
of  the  door  by  four  stout  screws.  By  the  help  of  his  dagger 
he  contrived,  not  without  much  difficulty,  to  unscrew  and  re- 
move this  altogether ;  he  carefully  laid  aside  the  staple  and  the 
four  screws,  and  proceeded  down  the  stairs  without  his  shoes 
to  reconnoitre  the  locality.  It  was  midnight  when  he  was 
free. 

He  was  quite  astonished  to  discover  a  wide-open  door  to  a 
corridor  leading  to  several  chambers,  at  the  end  of  which  pas- 
sage was  a  window  opening  on  to  the  V-shaped  roof  connecting 
the  roofsof  the  Hotel  de  Poitiers  and  the  "  evil  house,"  which 
there  met.  Nothing  could  express  his  joy,  unless  it  be  the 
vow  which  he  forthwith  made  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  to  found 
a  mass  in  her  honor  at  the  noted  parish  church  of  the  Escrig- 
noles,  at  Tours. 

After  examining  the  vast,  tall  chimneys  of  the   Hotel  de 


MA1TRE   CORN&LWS.  331 

Poitiers,  he  retraced  his  steps  to  fetch  his  poinard  ;  he  saw, 
to  his  terror,  a  bright  light  upon  the  stairs,  and  Maitre  Cor- 
nelius himself  in  his  dalmation,  carrying  a  lamp,  holding  it 
out  as  far  as  possible,  his  eyes  open  to  their  fullest  extent  and 
fixed  upon  the  corridor,  at  the  entrance  of  which  he  stood  still 
as  a  spectre. 

"If  I  open  the  window  and  jump  out  upon  the  roof,  he  will 
hear  me,"  thought  the  young  man. 

But  the  terrible  old  man  was  coming  on — coming  like  the 
hour  of  death  stealing  upon  the  criminal.  In  this  extremity 
Philippe,  his  wits  quickened  by  love,  recovered  his  presence 
of  mind  ;  he  slipped  into  a  doorway,  squeezing  himself  into 
the  angle  of  it,  and  awaited  the  old  man's  passing  him.  As 
soon  as  Cornelius,  holding  his  lamp  in  advance,  came  into 
line  with  the  current  of  air  which  the  young  man  ejected  from 
his  lungs,  the  light  was  blown  out. 

Cornelius  uttered  a  Dutch  oath  and  muttered  some  vague 
phrases ;  but  he  turned  around  and  retraced  his  footsteps. 
Then  the  noble  hurriedly  sought  his  room  and  the  poinard, 
returned  with  the  latter  to  his  so  blessed  window,  softly  opened 
it,  and  sprang  out  upon  the  roof. 

Once  free  and  under  the  open  sky,  he  felt  weak,  so  deliri- 
ously happy  was  he.  The  excitement  of  the  danger,  or  the 
audacity  of  his  enterprise,  caused  his  emotion  ;  victory  is  to 
the  full  as  perilous  as  the  battle.  He  leaned  against  the  par- 
apet, quivering  in  his  satisfaction,  and  said  to  himself: 

"  By  which  of  these  chimneys,  now.  can  I  get  into  her 
room  ?  ' ' 

He  looked  at  them  all.  With  the  instinct  of  a  lover,  he 
touched  each  in  turn  to  judge  by  the  feel  in  which  there  had 
been  a  fire.  When  his  mind  was  made  up  on  this  point,  the 
daring  young  man  securely  stuck  his  poinard  in  the  joint  be- 
tween two  stones,  attached  to  it  a  silken  ladder,  threw  the 
latter  down  the  chimney,  and  then,  trusting  to  his  good  blade 
and  the  chance  of  having  selected  the  route  to  his  mistress' 


332  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

room,  without  a  tremor  descended.  He  knew  not  whether 
Saint-Vallier  was  asleep  or  awake ;  but  one  thing  he  did  know, 
and  that  was  that  he  would  embrace  the  countess,  even  if  it 
should  be  at  the  price  of  two  men's  lives. 

Presently  his  feet  touched  warm  embers ;  he  gently  trod 
them  ;  more  gently  yet  he  stooped  down  and  saw  the  countess 
seated  in  an  armchair. 

And  she  saw  him. 

By  the  light  of  the  lamp,  the  timid  being,  pale  and  palpi- 
tating with  pleasurable  emotions,  pointed  to  the  Comte  de 
Saint-Vallier  lying  in  bed,  about  ten  feet  away  from  her. 
You  may  suppose  that  their  burning,  silent  kisses  echoed  only 
in  their  hearts. 

The  next  day,  about  nine  in  the  morning,  as  Louis  XI.  was 
leaving  his  chapel  after  attending  mass,  he  found  Maitre  Cor- 
nelius in  his  path. 

"Good-luck,  crony,"  said  he,  straightening  his  cap  in  his 
usual  jerky  manner. 

"  Sire,  I  would  willingly  pay  you  a  thousand  gold  crowns 
if  I  could  have  a  moment's  speech  with  your  majesty ;  I  have 
discovered  the  thief  who  stole  the  rubies  and  all  the  jewels  of 
the  Duke " 

"Let  us  hear  about  this,"  said  Louis  XL,  going  into  the 
courtyard  of  le  Plessis,  followed  by  his  silversmith,  Coyctier 
his  physician,  Olivier  le  Daim,  and  the  captain  of  the  Scottish 
Guard.  "Tell  me  this  business.  Another  man  to  hang  for 
you!  Halloo,  Tristan  !  " 

The  grand  provost,  who  was  marching  up  and  down  the 
courtyard,  came  with  slow  steps,  like  a  dog  proud  of  his 
fidelity.  The  group  paused  under  a  tree.  The  King  seated 
himself  on  a  bench  and  the  courtiers  formed  a  circle  around 
him. 

"  Sire,  a  man  pretending  to  be  a  Fleming  has  entrapped 
and  got  the  better  of  me "  be<ran  Cornelius. 


MA1TRE   CORNELIUS.  ;333 

"Indeed,  then  he  must  be  crafty,"  said  the  King,  wagging 
his  head. 

"Yes,  truly,"  answered  the  silversmith.  "But  methinks 
he  would  have  snared  even  yourself.  How  should  I  distrust 
a  poor  beggar  recommended  to  me  by  Oosterlinck,  a  man 
for  whom  I  hold  a  hundred  thousand  livres?  Nay,  I  will 
wager  that  the  Jew's  letter  and  seal  were  forged  !  In  short, 
Sire,  I  found  myself  this  morning  robbed  of  those  jewels  you 
praised  so  admiringly.  They  have  been  ravished  from  me, 
Sire  !  To  steal  the  jewels  of  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  !  The 
scoundrels  will  stop  at  nothing !  They'll  steal  your  kingdom 
if  you  don't  look  out.  They  respect  no  one  ! 

"  As  soon  as  I  missed  the  jewels  I  went  up  to  the  room  of 
that  apprentice,  who  is  certainly  a  pastmaster  in  thievery. 
This  time  proof  is  not  lacking.  He  had  forced  the  lock  of 
his  door.  The  moon  was  down  wiien  he  returned  to  his 
room,  so  he  couldn't  find  all  the  screws.  By  good  chance  I 
trod  upon  one  as  I  entered  his  room.  He  was  sound  asleep, 
the  wretch,  tired  out.  Just  fancy,  gentlemen,  he  climbed 
into  my  strong  room  by  way  of  the  chimney.  To-morrow, 
or  perhaps  to-night,  I'll  make  it  hot  for  him  though.  We 
can  always  learn  something  from  these  villains.  He  had  a 
silk  ladder  about  him,  and  his  clothes  were  marked  with  the 
dust  of  the  roofs  over  which  he  had  clambered,  and  the  soot 
of  the  chimney  down  which  he  had  descended.  He  intended 
remaining  with  me  and  robbing  me  night  after  night,  the  bold 
villain!  But  where  has  he  hid  the  jewels?  The  country- 
folk coming  early  into  town  saw  him  on  the  roof.  He  must 
have  had  accomplices,  who  waited  for  him  on  that  dyke  you 
made.  Ah  !  Sire,  you  are  the  accomplice  of  fellows  who  come 
in  boats;  when,  crack!  they  carry  off  everything  and  leave 
never  a  trace  !  But  we  hold  this  fellow,  this  leader,  as  a  key, 
the  horrid  miscreant,  the  daring  scapegrace.  Ah  !  but  he'll 
be  a  dainty  morsel  for  the  gibbet  ;  with  a  screw  or  two  of 
qufsi 'toning  beforehand,  he  will  tell  all.  And  the  honor  of 


334  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

your  reign  is  concerned  in  it — is  it  not  ?     There  ought  not  to 
be  robbers  in  the  realm  of  so  great  a  King." 

But  for  long  the  King  had  ceased  to  listen.  He  had  fallen 
into  one  of  those  gloomy  meditations  which  became  so  fre- 
quent and  ominous  in  the  latter  period  of  his  life.  A  deep 
silence  reigned. 

''This  is  your  business,"  said  he  at  length  to  Tristan. 
"Search  ye  it  out." 

He  rose,  walked  a  few  steps,  and  the  courtiers  left  him 
alone.  He  then  perceived  Cornelius,  who,  mounted  on  his 
mule,  was  riding  away  in  the  company  of  the  grand  provost. 

"And  the  thousand  gold  crowns?  "  shouted  the  King  after 
him. 

"Ah  !  Sire,  you  are  too  great  a  King  !  No  sum  can  pay 
for  your  justice  !  " 

Louis  XI.  smiled.  The  courtiers  envied  the  old  Fleming 
his  bold  speech  and  privileges,  as  he  passed  off  at  a  good  pace 
down  the  avenue  of  young  mulberry  trees  leading  from  Tours 
to  le  Plessis. 

Exhausted  with  fatigue,  the  young  siegneur  was  sleeping 
soundly.  When  he  returned  from  his  gallant  adventure  the 
spirit  which  had  carried  him  through  ceased  to  act  in  giving 
him  the  ability  to  defend  himself  against  distant  or  imaginary 
dangers ;  he  was  no  longer  rashly  pursuing  anticipated  joys. 
He  postponed  until  the  morrow  the  cleansing  of  his  soiled 
garb  ;  a  great  blunder,  to  which  all  else  conspired.  It  is  true 
that  the  moon  had  failed  him  ;  through  this  he  was  unable  to 
find  all  the  screws  belonging  to  the  cursed  lock,  he  was  im- 
patient. Then  with  the  happy-go-lucky  indifference  of  a  tired 
man  he  trusted  to  chance  which  had  served  him  so  well.  He 
did,  indeed,  make  a  bargain  with  himself  to  awake  at  the 
dawn,  but  the  events  of  the  day  and  the  tumults  of  the  night 
prevented  his  keeping  the  promise.  Happiness  is  forgetful. 
Cornelius  was  no  longer,  so  it  seemed,  formidable  to  him,  as 
he  flung  himself  down  on  the  trucklc-bcd  where  so  many  poor 


A1A/TKE    CORNELIUS,  335 

wretches  had  awoke  to  their  doom.     This  recklessness  was  his 
ruin. 

While  the  King's  silversmith  was  returning  from  le  Plessis, 
in  the  company  of  the  grand  provost  and  his  redoubtable  bow- 
men, the  pretended  Goulenoire  was  being  watched  by  the  old 
sister,  who  was  seated  on  the  spiral  stairs,  knitting  stockings 
and  paying  no  heed  to  the  cold. 

The  young  man  continued  to  dream  of  the  ravishing  en- 
chantments of  the  charming  night,  in  full  ignorance  of  that 
danger  which  was  rushing  upon  him  at  a  hand-gallop.  He 
saw  himself  on  a  cushion  at  the  feet  of  the  countess,  his  head 
on  her  knees  warm  with  affection's  fire. 

He  was  dreaming. 

He  listened  to  the  story  of  her  persecutions  and  the  full 
details  of  the  count's  petty  tyranny;  he  wept  over  the  lot  of 
the  unhappy  lady,  who  was,  in  truth,  the  one  natural  daugh- 
ter of  Louis  XL,  who  was  best  beloved  by  him.  He  promised 
her  that  to-morrow  he  would  go  to  the  King  and  reveal  her 
wrongs  to  that  terrible  father ;  everything,  he  assured  her, 
should  be  satisfactorily  arranged  as  she  might  wish,  the  mar- 
riage annulled,  the  husband  banished — while  they  themselves 
might  be  the  victims  of  his  sword,  so  perilously  near,  if  the 
slightest  noise  should  awaken  him.  But  in  his  dreams,  the 
gleam  of  the  lamp,  the  flame  of  their  eyes,  the  colors  of  the 
stuffs  and  draperies  were  more  vivid,  brighter  than  in  reality  ; 
a  more  delightful  perfume  exhaled  from  their  night-dresses ; 
there  was  more  of  love  in  the  air,  more  fire  in  the  atmosphere 
than  there  had  really  been.  The  Marie  of  his  dream  did  not 
so  strongly  resist  his  advances  as  the  living  Marie  had  done. 
The  adoring  glances,  those  tender  entreaties,  those  adroit 
silences,  those  voluptuous  solicitations,  the  affected  gener- 
osity, which  render  the  first  moments  of  a  passion  so  fiercely 
ardent,  which  arouse  a  fresh  delirium  at  each  new  step  toward 
love,  were  less  objected  to. 

Jn  obedience  to  the  amorous  jurisprudence  of  the  period, 


336  MA1TRE   CORXLL1US. 

Marie  de  Saint-Vallier  granted  her  lover  all  the  superficial 
privileges  of  the  tender  passion,  la  petite  oie.*  She  will- 
ingly allowed  him  to  kiss  her  feet,  her  robe,  her  hands,  her 
throat ;  she  avowed  her  love ;  she  accepted  his  vows  and  at- 
tentions; she  consented  for  him  to  die  for  her;  she  yielded 
to  an  intoxication  which  the  rigor  of  her  half-chasteness  inten- 
sified ;  further  than  that  she  could  not  be  induced  to  go — she 
made  her  deliverance  the  guerdon  of  the  highest  surrender  to 
his  love. 

In  order  to  have  a  marriage  annulled,  in  those  days,  it  was 
necessary  to  apply  to  Rome  ;  to  obtain  the  help  of  certain 
cardinals,  and  to  personally  appear  before  the  sovereign  pontiff 
armed  with  the  approval  of  the  King.  Marie  was  firm  in  de- 
siring to  be  free  to  love,  that  she  might  freely  give  it  to  the 
one  she  loved. 

Almost  every  woman  in  those  days  had  enough  of  power  to 
establish  her  empire  in  the  heart  of  a  man  in  such  manner  as 
to  make  that  passion  the  history  of  his  life,  the  principle  of 
his  noblest  resolves.  Women  were  then  a  power  in  France, 
they  were  sovereigns ;  they  had  noble  pride  ;  their  lovers  far 
more  belonged  to  them  than  they  to  their  lovers ;  their  love 
was  often  the  cause  of  bloodshed,  but  this  must  be  faced  to 
become  a  lover.  But  this  Marie  of  his  dream  was  gracious ; 
she  was  deeply  moved  by  her  lover's  devotion  ;  she  made  but 
small  defense  against  his  vehement  onslaught. 

Which  one  was  true?  Did  the  false  apprentice  see  the  real 
woman  in  his  dream  ?  Was  the  lady  he  saw  in  the  Hotel  de 
Poitiers  only  assuming  virtue's  mask?  This  question  it  is 
difficult  to  decide;  it  is  too  delicate:  woman's  honor  de- 
mands, as  it  were,  that  it  should  remain  unanswered. 

At  the  instant  that  the  Marie  of  the  dream  may  have  been 
about  to   forget   her  high  dignity  as  his  mistress,  the  lover 
found  himself  in  the  grasp  of  an  iron  hand,  and  the  sharp 
tones  of  the  grand  provost,  as  he  thus  addressed  him  : 
*  Lit.:  the  little  goose. 


MAI'TRE  CORNELIUS.  337 

"  Come,  you  Christian  of  midnight,  who  feel  around  the 
roofs  for  God,  wake  up,  come  !  " 

The  young  man  saw  the  black  face  of  Tristan  d'Hermite 
above  him  ;  he  recognized  his  sardonic  leer  ;  then  on  the 
steps  of  the  corkscrew  stairway  he  saw  Cornelius  and  his  sis- 
ter, while  beyond  them  were  the  provost  guards.  At  that  sight 
and  noticing  the  diabolical  visages,  expressive  of  either  hatred 
or  curiosity  of  persons  accustomed  to  hanging  people,  the 
whilom  Philippe  Goulenoire  sat  up  on  his  bed  and  rubbed  his 
eyes. 

"  'Sdeath  !  "  he  exclaimed,  seizing  the  poinard  which  was 
under  his  pillow.  "  Now  is  the  time  for  our  knives  to  play." 

"  Ho,  ho  !  "  cried  Tristan,  "  that's  the  speech  of  a  noble. 
It  seemeth  me  that  here  is  Georges  de  Estouteville,  nephew  of 
the  grandmaster  of  bowmen." 

Hearing  his  real  name  uttered  by  Tristan,  young  d'Estoute- 
ville  thought  less  of  himself  than  of  the  danger  his  recognition 
would  cause  his  unhappy  mistress.  To  avert  suspicion  he 
cried  out : 

"  By  Mahomet's  belly  !  help,  help,  comrades,  help  !  " 

After  this  terrible  outcry,  and  made  really  in  despair,  the 
young  courtier  gave  a  bound,  poinard  in  hand,  and  reached 
the  landing  on  the  stairs.  But  the  myrmidons  of  the  grand 
provost  were  well  up  in  such  games.  As  Georges  d'Estoute- 
ville  reached  the  stairs  they  most  dexterously  seized  him,  not 
at  all  alarmed  at  the  vigorous  lunges  he  made  at  them  with 
his  dagger,  which,  fortunately  for  the  man  at  whom  it  was 
aimed,  slipped  on  his  corslet.  He  was  disarmed,  his  arms 
tied,  and  he  was  thrown  on  the  bed  before  the  provost,  who 
stood  motionless,  thinking. 

Tristan  looked  for  a  moment,  without  speaking,  at  the  pris- 
oner's hands  ;  he  scratched  his  chin  and  pointed  Cornelius  to 
them,  and  said  : 

"  Those  are  no  vagabond's  hands,  neither  are  they  those  of 
an  apprentice.  He  is  a  noble." 


338  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

"  Say  a  thief,  rather  !  "  retorted  the  Fleming.  "  My  good 
Tristan,  whether  noble  or  serf,  he  has  undone  me,  the  villain. 
I  would  that  this  moment  I  could  see  his  feet  warming  in  your 
pretty  boots.  Beyond  any  doubt  he  is  the  chief  of  that  gang 
of  invisible  devils  who  know  all  my  secrets,  open  my  locks, 
rob  me,  kill  me  by  inches.  They  are  rich  with  my  wealth, 
Tristan.  Ah  !  this  time,  though,  we  will  recover  the  treasure, 
for  this  fellow  has  the  face  of  the  King  of  Egypt.  I  shall 
recover  my  so  precious  rubies,  all  the  sums  I  have  lost ;  our 
good  King  shall  have  his  division  of  the  spoil." 

"Oh,  our  hiding-places  are  more  secret  than  yours,"  said 
Georges,  smiling. 

"Ah,  the  damned  villain,  he  confesses  !  "  cried  the  miser. 

The  provost  during  this  time  had  been  carefully  examining 
Georges'  clothing  and  the  lock  of  the  door. 

"  How  did  you  remove  those  screws  ?  "  asked  Tristan. 

Georges  kept  silent. 

"Oh,  all  right;  hold  your  tongue  if  you  wish.  You  will 
soon  confess  to  Saint  Rackbones,"  said  the  provost. 

"Now  you  talk  business  !  "  cried  Cornelius. 

"  Away  with  him,"  said  the  grand  provost. 

Georges  d'Estouteville  asked  permission  to  dress  himself. 
On  a  sign  from  their  chief  the  guard  put  on  his  clothing  with 
the  deft  rapidity  of  a  nurse  who  is  changing  a  baby's  dress 
during  a  moment's  quietude. 

An  immense  throng  had  assembled  in  the  Rue  du  Murier. 
The  growling  increased  with  every  moment,  and  had  the 
sound  of  an  incipient  riot.  Rumors  of  the  theft  had  been 
prevalent  since  early  morning.  On  all  sides  popular  favor 
was  aroused  on  behalf  of  the  apprentice,  who  was  said  to 
be  young  and  handsome;  while  the  hatred  against  Cornelius 
had  revived  afresh.  There  was  not  a  young  woman  with  fresh 
cheeks  and  pretty  feet  to  exhibit,  nor  a  mother's  son  in  all 
the  town,  but  was  determined  on  seeing  the  victim.  When 
Georges  issued  from  the  house  there  was  a  frightful  uproar  in 


MAfTRE   CORNELIUS.  339 

the  street,  as  he  was  seen  led  by  one  of  the  guard,  who,  after 
he  had  mounted  his  horse,  kept  the  twisted  end  of  the  strong 
leathern  thong  that  bound  his  prisoner's  arms. 

Whether  it  was  that  the  mob  merely  wished  to  see  this  new 
victim,  or  whether  rescue  was  intended,  the  people  behind 
pushed  those  in  front  close  upon  the  little  squad  of  cavalry 
posted  outside  the  Malemaison.  At  this  time,  Cornelius  and 
his  sister  slammed  the  door  and  banged  the  shutters  to  with 
the  violence  of  panic-terror.  Tristan  was  not  accustomed  to 
respect  the  populace,  as  in  those  days  they  were  not  yet  the 
'•sovereign  people,"  and  cared  but  little  for  a  probable  riot. 

"  Push  on  !     Push  on  !  "  he  cried  to  his  men. 

At  his  voice  the  bowmen  spurred  their  horses  toward  the  end 
of  the  street.  The  crowd  seeing  a  few  persons  knocked  down 
and  trampled  by  the  horses,  and  others  crushed  up  against  the 
walls  of  the  houses  and  nearly  suffocated,  took  the  wise  course 
of  returning  to  their  homes. 

"Make  way  for  the  King's  justice!  "  cried  Tristan. 
"  What  are  you  doing  here?  Do  some  of  you  want  hanging, 
too?  Go  home,  good  people;  your  dinner  is  being  burned. 
Here,  my  good  dame,  your  husband's  hose  need  mending, 
get  off  home  and  darn  them,  get  back  to  your  needles." 

Though  this  jocular  speech  showed  that  the  grand  provost 
was  in  a  good  humor,  the  most  obstreperous  fled  before  them 
as  if  he  were  the  Black  Plague  itself. 

At  the  time  the  crowd  began  to  give  somewhat,  Georges 
de  Estouteville  was  astounded  to  see  at  one  of  the  windows  of 
the  Hotel  de  Poitiers  his  beloved  Marie  de  Saint-Vallier, 
laughing  with  the  count.  She  was  mocking  at  him,  the  poor 
devoted  lover,  who  was  going  to  his  death  for  her.  But, 
perhaps,  she  was  only  amused  by  seeing  the  caps  of  the 
populace  knocked  off  by  the  spears  of  the  bowmen. 

One  must  b£  twenty-three  years  old,  rich  in  illusions,  fully 
able  to  believe  in  a  woman's  love,  must  love  with  all  the 
power  of  our  life,  risking  it  with  pleasure  on  the  handsel  of  a 


340  MAJTRE   CORNELIUS. 

kiss,  and  then  be  betrayed  to  comprehend  the  fury  of  hatred 
and  despair  which  shook  Georges  de  Estouteville's  heart  at  the 
sight  of  his  laughing  mistress,  who  only  vouchsafed  him  a 
cold,  indifferent  glance.  Without  a  doubt  she  had  been  there 
some  time,  for  her  arms  rested  on  a  cushion  ;  she  was  quite  at 
her  ease  and  her  old  mountebank  seemed  content.  He,  too, 
was  laughing — all  curses  on  the  hunchback  ! 

A  few  tears  ran  from  the  young  man's  eyes ;  but  when 
Marie  saw  them  she  hastily  drew  back.  The  tears,  though, 
were  suddenly  dried  when  Georges  beheld  the  red  and  white 
plumes  of  the  page  who  was  in  his  interest.  The  count  did 
not  notice  the  movements  of  this  cautious  page,  for  he 
advanced  to  his  mistress  on  tip-toe.  After  he  had  spoken  a 
few  words  in  her  ear,  Marie  returned  to  the  window.  She 
managed  to  elude  the  watchful  eye  of  her  tyrant  for  a  moment 
and  cast  upon  Georges  a  look  that  was  bright  with  the  fires  of 
love — and  the  triumph  of  having  so  skillfully  deceived  her 
Argus — a  glance  that  seemed  to  say : 

"  I  am  watching  over  you." 

Had  she  cried  aloud  these  words  to  him,  she  could  not  more 
have  impressed  them  upon  his  hearing  ;  that  glance  was  full 
of  a  thousand  thoughts,  it  was  charged  with  the  terrors,  hopes, 
pleasure,  of  their  situation.  He  had  passed  in  that  one  second 
from  heaven  to  martyrdom,  from  martyrdom  back  to  heaven  ! 
So,  then,  this  brave  young  man,  light-hearted  and  content, 
walked  gayly  to  his  doom  ;  he  adjudged  the  horrors  of  the 
grim  "  question  "  but  a  small  price  for  the  rapture  of  his  love. 

As  Tristan  was  turning  off  the  Rue  du  Mftrier,  his  men 
halted  as  an  officer  of  the  Scottish  Guard  rode  toward  them 
at  full  tilt. 

"What  is  to  do?"  asked  the  provost. 

"Naught  concerning  you,"  replied  the  officer,  scornfully. 
"  The  King  sends  me  to  summon  the  Comte  and  Comtesse  de 
Saint-Vallier,  whom  he  bids  dine  with  him." 

The  grand  provost  had  barely  reached  the  quay  of  le  Plessis 


AfAlTRE   CORNELIUS.  341 

when  the  count  and  countess,  both  riding,  he  on  his  horse, 
she  on  a  white  mule,  and  followed  by  their  pages,  joined  the 
bowmen,  intending  to  enter  Plessis-le-Tours  in  their  company. 
All  were  moving  slowly.  Georges  was  on  foot  between  two 
mounted  guards,  one  of  whom  still  held  him  by  the  leathern 
thong. 

Tristan,  the  count,  and  his  wife  naturally  led  the  van ;  the 
criminal  followed  them.  The  young  page  mingled  with  the 
bowmen  and  questioned  them,  at  times  addressing  the  pris- 
oner ;  he  contrived  with  some  cunning  to  say  to  him  in  a  low 
voice : 

"  I  got  over  the  garden-wall  of  le  Plessis  and  took  a  missive 
to  the  King  from  madame.  She  was  nearly  dying  when  she 
learned  of  your  arrest  for  theft.  Be  of  good  courage.  She 
now  goes  to  the  King  to  speak  for  you." 

Already  had  love  given  wiliness  and  courage  to  the  countess. 
The  laughter  she  had  forced  was  part  of  the  heroism  women 
can  display  in  the  great  crises  of  life. 

Despite  the  singular  fancy  which  possessed  the  author  of 
"  Quentin  Durward  "  to  place  the  royal  chateau  of  Plessis-le- 
Tours  on  an  eminence,  we  must  content  ourselves  in  leaving 
it  where  it  really  was  situated,  that  is,  on  the  low  land,  pro- 
tected on  either  side  by  the  Cher  and  the  Loire;  also  by 
the  Canal  Sainte-Anne,  so  named  in  honor  of  his  well-loved 
daughter,  Madame  du  Beaujeu.  By  uniting  the  two  rivers 
between  Tours  and  le  Plessis,  this  canal  served  as  a  formidable 
further  protection  to  the  castle,  and  was  also  valuable  as  a 
highway  for  commerce.  On  that  side  toward  Brehemont,  a 
broad,  fertile  plain,  the  park  was  inclosed  by  a  moat,  the  re- 
mains of  which  still  show  its  extent  and  depth. 

At  a  period  when  the  power  of  artillery  was  still  in  embryo, 
the  position  of  le  Plessis,  long  the  favorite  retreat  of  Louis  XL, 
might  be  considered  impregnable.  The  chateau,  built  of 
brick  and  stone,  was  in  no  way  remarkable  ;  but  surrounding  it 
were  noble  trees,  and  from  its  windows  could  be  seen  through 


342  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

the  well-arranged  vistas*  the  loveliest  views  imaginable.  No 
rival  place  was  to  be  found  near  this  solitary  castle,  which 
stood  in  the  very  centre  of  the  little  plain  reserved  for  the 
King  and  guarded  by  four  streams  of  water. 

If  tradition  may  be  relied  upon,  Louis  XI.  occupied  the 
West  wing,  and  from  his  chamber  could  see  at  one  glance  the 
course  of  the  Loire,  the  pretty  valley  watered  by  the  Croisville, 
and  some  part  of  the  slopes  of  Saint-Cyr.  From  the  windows 
opening  on  the  courtyard  he  could  see  the  entrance  to  his 
fortress  and  the  dyke  by  which  he  had  connected  his  favorite 
residence  with  the  city  of  Tours.  The  suspicious  disposition 
of  the  King  gives  much  weight  to  this  tradition.  It  is  certain 
that  had  Louis  XI.  bestowed  upon  the  building  of  his  castle 
the  luxury  of  architecture  which  Francois  I.  afterward  dis- 
played at  Chambord,  the  royal  residence  of  France  would 
always  have  remained  in  Touraine.  This  lovely  spot  and  ex- 
quisite scenery  need  only  to  be  seen  to  at  once  establish  its 
superiority  over  all  other  royal  residences  in  the  fair  realm  of 
France. 

Louis  XL,  now  in  his  fifty-seventh  year,  had  scarcely  more 
than  three  years  of  life  before  him  ;  already  he  began  to  feel 
death's  approach  by  many  attacks  of  that  illness  which  was  to 
prove  mortal ;  delivered  from  his  enemies  ;  on  the  point  of 
adding  to  his  territories  by  absorbing  the  possessions  of  the 
duchy  of  Burgundy,  through  the  marriage  of  the  dauphin  and 
Marguerite,  the  sole  heiress  of  that  dukedom — which  marriage 
was  arranged  by  Desquerdes,  the  captain-general  of  his  army 
in  Flanders  ;  having  established  his  authority  throughout  his 
realm  ;  now  meditating  ameliorations  and  improvements  of 
every  description  in  the  kingdom,  he  found  time  slipping 
from  his  grasp,  no  troubles  remaining  to  him  save  those  of  old 
age.  Deceived  by  every  one,  even  by  the  minions  nearest 
him,  experience  had  increased  his  natural  distrust.  The  desire 
to  live  had  become  in  him  the  egotism  of  a  king  who  has  be- 

*  Plcxitium. 


MA2TRE   CORNELIUS.  343 

come  incarnate  in  his  subjects ;  he  craved  long  life  in  which 
to  carry  out  vast  designs. 

Everything  that  the  commonsense  of  statesmen  of  spirit  or 
the  genius  of  revolution  has  since  introduced  of  change  in  the 
monarchy,  Louis  XL  had  devised.  Equality  of  taxation,  and 
of  people  before  the  law — the  Sovereign  being  then  the  Law — 
were  the  objects  for  which  he  endeavored.  On  the  eve  of  All- 
Saints  he  had  gathered  together  the  learned  goldsmiths  of 
France  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  in  his  kingdom  a  system 
of  uniform  weights  and  measures.  He  had  already  established 
a  uniform  power.  Thus  his  great  spirit  soared  like  an  eagle 
above  his  realm,  joining,  singular  but  true,  the  prudence  of  a 
king  to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  a  man  of  genius. 

At  no  period  of  our  history  has  Monarchy's  figure  been 
greater  or  more  majestic.  Amazing  contrast !  A  great  mind 
in  a  frail  body ;  an  unbelieving  spirit  as  concerned  the  mun- 
dane, a  devout  believer  in  all  the  practices  of  religion  ;  a  man 
struggling  against  two  powers  greater  than  his  own — the 
present,  the  future;  the  future  in  which  he  dreaded  eternal 
torment,  a  fear  causing  him  to  sacrifice  largely  to  the  church ; 
the  present,  his  own  life,  for  the  saving  of  which  he  was  the 
slave  of  Coyctier.  This  King,  who  could  crush  all  about  him, 
was  himself  crushed  by  remorse,  by  disease,  in  the  midst  of 
that  mysterious  poem — the  combat  of  Man  in  his  highest  mani- 
festations of  power  tilting  against  nature. 

It  was  stupendous,  it  was  impressive. 

While  awaiting  his  dinner,  which,  in  those  days,  was  par- 
taken between  eleven  o'clock  and  noon,  Louis  XL,  after  a 
short  walk,  sat  down  in  a  large,  tapestried  chair  near  the 
fire  in  his  private  chamber.  Olivier  le  Daim  and  Coyctier, 
the  leech,  looked  at  each  other  without  a  word,  standing  in  a 
window  recess  and  watching  their  master,  who  was  sleeping. 
The  only  sound  to  be  heard  was  the  steps  of  the  two  chamber- 
lains as  they  paced  back  and  forth  in  the  anteroom,  the  Sire 
de  Montresor  and  Jean  Dufou,  Sire  de  Montbazon.  These 


344  MAITRE    CORNELIUS. 

two  seigneurs  of  Touraine  kept  an  eye  on  the  captain  of  the 
Scottish  Guard,  who,  according  to  his  usual  custom,  was 
sleeping  in  his  chair. 

The  King  seemed  to  be  dozing.  His  head  drooped  upon 
his  breast ;  his  cap,  pulled  forward  over  his  forehead,  hid  his 
eyes.  Thus,  seated  on  his  high  chair  of  State,  which  was  sur- 
mounted by  a  crown,  he  seemed,  huddled  up  as  he  was,  like 
a  man  who  had  fallen  asleep  while  engaged  in  some  profound 
meditation. 

At  this  moment  Tristan  and  his  followers  crossed  the  bridge 
of  Sainte-Anne  over  the  canal,  about  two  hundred  feet  from 
the  entrance  to  le  Plessis. 

"  Who  goes  there?  "  asked  the  King. 

The  courtiers,  in  surprise,  looked  at  each  other  inquiringly. 

"  He  is  dreaming,"  said  Coyctier  in  a  low  voice. 

"  Pasque  s-Dicu  !  "  cried  Louis  XI.  "Do  you  think  I'm 
a  fool  ?  People  are  now  crossing  the  bridge.  To  be  sure  I 
am  sitting  near  the  chimney,  and  I  may  hear  more  clearly 
than  you.  This  effect  of  nature  might  be  made  useful,"  he 
thoughtfully  added. 

"  What  a  man  !  "  said  le  Daim. 

Louis  XI.  arose  and  walked  toward  one  of  the  windows 
looking  over  the  town.  He  saw  the  grand  provost  and  ex- 
claimed : 

"  Ha,  ha  !  here  come  my  old  crony  and  his  thief.  And 
there,  too,  is  my  little  Marie  de  Saint-Vallier ;  I  had  forgotten 
all  about  that.  Olivier,"  he  continued  to  the  barber,  "  go  at 
once  and  tell  Monsieur  de  Montbazon  to  serve  us  some  good 
Bourgueil  wine  at  dinner,  and  mind  the  cook  forgets  not  the 
lampreys.  Madame  la  Comtesse  likes  those  of  all  things. 
May  I  eat  lampreys?  "  he  added  after  a  pause,  glaring  uneasily 
at  Coyctier. 

For  all  answer  the  physician  commenced  to  examine  his 
master's  face.  The  two  men  were  a  picture. 

Historians  and  romancists  have  consecrated  the  brown  cam- 


.   CORNELIUS.  346 

let  large  coat,  with  breeches  of  the  same  material,  worn  by 
Louis  XI.  His  cap,  decorated  with  pewter  medallions,  his 
collar  of  the  order  of  Saint-Michael  are  not  less  known  ;  but 
no  writer,  no  painter,  has  ever  depicted  the  visage  of  that 
terrible  monarch  in  his  last  years;  sickly,  hollow,  yellow, 
brown,  every  feature  of  which  was  expressive  of  sour  cunning 
and  cold  sarcasm.  This  mask  had  the  brow  of  a  noble  man,  a 
forehead  furrowed  with  wrinkles,  weighty  with  deep  thoughts ; 
but  on  his  lips  and  cheeks  was  a  something  indescribably  low 
and  vulgar.  Looking  at  certain  details  of  that  countenance 
you  might  have  thought  him  a  debauched  vine-grower  or  a 
miserly  tradesman  ;  but  then,  above  these  resemblances  and 
the  decrepitude  of  a  dying  old  man,  could  vaguely  be  seen  the 
King,  the  man  of  power,  the  man  of  action,  arising  supreme. 
His  pale  yellow  eyes  seemed  extinct  of  sight ;  but  a  spark  of 
courage  and  wrath  lurked  within  ;  at  the  slightest  friction  it 
could  burst  into  flame  and  cast  about  consuming  fires. 

The  physician  was  a  stout  burgher  with  a  florid  face,  dressed 
in  black,  peremptory,  greedy  of  gain,  of  much  self-importance. 

These  two  personages  were  framed,  so  to  say,  in  that  pan- 
eled chamber  of  walnut-wood,  hung  about  with  tapestry  of 
Flanders;  the  ceiling  was  of  carved  beams  and  dingy  with 
smoke. 

The  furniture,  the  bed,  all  inlaid  with  arabesques  of  polished 
pewter,  would  to-day  seem  more  valuable  than  they  were  at 
that  time  when  the  arts  were  just  exploiting  their  numberless 
masterpieces. 

"Lampreys  are  not  good  for  you,"  replied  the  physician. 

(This  title,  le  physicicn,  but  recently  substituted  for  the 
former  term  maitre  myrrhe,  is  still  applied  to  the  faculty  in 
England.  The  name  was  at  that  time  almost  universally  used 
in  France.) 

"  What  then  may  I  eat  ?  "  asked  the  King  humbly. 

"Widgeon  in  salt.  Otherwise,  you  have  so  much  bile 
moving  that  you  might  die  on  All-Souls'  Day." 


34C  MA  fox  E   CORNELIUS. 

"  To-day  !  "  cried  the  King,  terrified. 

"Be  composed,  Sire,"  answered  Coyctier.  "Do  not  fret 
your  mind;  try  and  amuse  yourself  some." 

"Ah!"  said  the  King,  "  my  daughter  Marie  used  to  suc- 
ceed in  that  difficult  business." 

As  he  spoke,  Imbert  de  Basternay,  Sire  de  Montresor,  and 
de  Bridore,  softly  knocked  on  the  royal  door.  By  the  King's 
permission  he  entered  and  announced  the  Comte  and  Comtesse 
de  Saint-Vallier.  Louis  nodded  a  sign.  Marie  appeared, 
followed  by  her  aged  husband,  who  had  to  allow  her  to  pre- 
cede him. 

"Good-day,  my  children,"  said  the  King. 

"  Sire,"  replied  the  lady  in  a  whisper,  as  she  embraced  him, 
"I  would  speak  secretly  with  you." 

Louis  made  as  though  he  had  not  heard  her. 

"Dufou,  Hola  !  "  he  cried  in  a  hollow  voice,  turning  to  the 
door. 

Dufou,  Lord  of  Montbazon,  grand  cupbearer  of  France, 
entered  in  haste. 

"  Go  to  the  steward;  tell  him  I  must  have  widgeon  salted 
for  dinner.  Then  to  Madame  de  Beaujeu,  inform  her  that  I 
dine  alone  to-day.  Do  you  know,  madame,"  continued  the 
King,  pretending  to  some  feeling,  "  that  you  neglect  me.  It 
is  nearly  three  years  since  I  saw  you.  Come,  come  hither, 
pretty  one,"  he  added,  sitting  down  and  holding  out  his 
arms  to  her.  "  How  thin  you  have  become  !  Why  have  you 
allowed  her  to  get  so  thin?  Eh?"  he  ejaculated,  turning  to 
the  Count  de  Poitiers. 

The  jealous  husband  cast  so  frightened  a  look  at  his  wife 
that  she  almost  pitied  him. 

"  It's  happiness,  Sire,"  replied  he. 

"Ah  !  you  love  each  other  too  much,  do  you  ?  "  said  the 
King,  holding  his  daughter  between  his  knees.  "  I  was  right 
in  calling  you  Marie-pleine-de-Grace.  Coyctier,  leave  us  ! 
Now,  what  do  you  want  of  me?"  he  asked  his  daughter,  as 


CORNELIUS.  347 

soon  as  he  saw  the  physician  was  gone.     "After  sending  me 
your " 

In  this  so  great  danger  Marie  audaciously  placed  her  hand 
on  the  King's  lips  and  whispered  in  his  ear : 

"  I  always  thought  you  cautious  and  quick-witted — 

"  Saint-Vallier,"  said  the  King,  laughing,  "  I  think  Bridore 
has  something  he  wishes  to  say  to  you." 

The  count  left  the  room ;  but  he  made  a  gesture  with  his 
shoulder,  well  known  to  his  wife,  who  could  guess  the  thoughts 
of  this  jealous  man,  and  realized  that  she  must  guard  against 
his  malignancy. 

"Tell  me,  child,  how  you  think  I  am  looking?  Have  I 
changed  much,  eh?" 

'•  Do  you  want  the  truth,  my  lord?  Or  must  I  only  speak 
you  fair?  " 

"  No,"  said  he  in  a  husky  tone  of  voice,  "  I  want  to  know 
where  I  am." 

"  In  that  case  you  look  but  poorly  to-day.  I  trust,  though, 
that  my  veracity  mars  not  my  cause's  success." 

"What  is  your  cause?"  asked  the  King,  frowning  and 
passing  one  hand  over  his  forehead. 

•'Ah!  Sire,"  she  replied,  "the  young  man  that  you  have 
had  arrested  in  the  house  of  your  silversmith,  Maitre  Cor- 
nelius, and  who  is  now  a  prisoner  to  the  grand  provost,  is 
innocent  of  theft." 

"  How  know  you  this  ?  "  asked  the  King. 

Marie  hung  her  head  and  blushed. 

'•  I  need  not  ask  if  there  is  love  at  the  bottom  of  this  busi- 
ness," said  the  King  gently,  and  stroking  his  chin,  while  he 
raised  his  daughter's  face.  "  If  you  do  not  confess  every 
morning,  child,  you  will  go  to  hell." 

"  Cannot  you  oblige  me  without  questioning  my  secret 
thoughts?" 

"Where  were  the  pleasure  in  that  ?"  exclaimed  the  King, 
seeing  a  chance  of  some  amusement  in  this  affair. 


348  MAJTRE   CORNELIUS. 

"Ah !  but  would  you  have  pleasure  at  the  cost  of  my  sor- 
row?" 

"Oh!  you  sly  puss,  you;  won't  you  give  me  your  confi- 
dence, then  ?" 

"So,  then,  my  lord,  set  that  young  noble  free." 

"Oh,  oh!  he  is  a  nobleman,  is  he?"  cried  the  King. 
"  Then  he  is  not  an  apprentice  ?  " 

"  He  is  certainly  innocent,"  said  she. 

"I  do  not  so  see  it,"  replied  the  King  coldly.  "I  am 
the  supreme  judge  in  my  kingdom ;  it  is  my  duty  to  punish 
malefactors." 

"  Come,  put  not  on  that  solemn  face  of  yours  !  Grant  to 
me  the  life  of  that  young  man." 

"Would  not  that  be  giving  back  your  own  ?" 

"Sire,"  said  she,  "I  am  pure  and  virtuous.  You  do  but 
jest — 

"Then,"  said  Louis  XL,  interrupting  her,  "  if  you  cannot 
show  me  my  way,  I  must  get  the  light  of  Tristan  upon  it." 

Marie  de  Sassenage  turned  pale ;  she  made  a  violent  effort ; 
she  said : 

"Sire,  let  me  assure  you  that  should  you  do  this,  you  will 
afterward  regret  it.  The  so-called  thief  has  stolen  nothing. 
If  you  will  but  grant  me  his  pardon,  I  will  tell  you  all,  even 
though  you  should  visit  it  on  me." 

"  Oh,  ho  !  this'  is  becoming  serious,"  exclaimed  the  King 
as  he  pushed  up  his  cap.  "  Speak,  child." 

"Well,"  said  she  in  a  low  voice  in  her  father's  ear,  "he 
was  in  my  room  all  night." 

"He  may  have  been  there  and  yet  robbed  Cornelius;  a 
double  larceny." 

"Sire,  I  have  your  blood  in  my  veins — I  was  not  born  to 
love  a  scoundrel.  That  young  noble  is  the  nephew  of  the 
captain-general  of  your  bowmen." 

"Well,  well!"  cried  the  King,  "you  are  hard  to  con- 
fess." 


MA!TRE  CORNELIUS.  349 

At  these  words  the  King  pushed  his  daughter  off  his  knee, 
hurried  to  the  door  of  the  room,  but  softly  and  on  tiptoe, 
making  no  sound.  A  moment  ago  the  light  from  the  window 
in  the  outer  room,  shining  in  the  space  beneath  the  door,  had 
traced  the  shadow  of  a  listener's  foot  projected  slightly  on  the 
floor  of  his  room.  He  abruptly  opened  the  iron-bound  door 
and  surprised  the  Comte  de  Saint-Vallicr  eavesdropping. 
" Pasques-Dieu  ! "  he  exclaimed,  "such  insolence  deserves 
the  axe." 

"My  liege,"  said  Saint-Vallier  boldly,  "I  would  rather 
the  axe  were  at  my  neck  than  that  the  ornament  of  the  mar- 
ried were  on  my  head." 

"You  may  yet  have  both,"  said  Louis  XI.  "Not  a  man 
of  the  lot  of  you  is  safe  from  such  a  misfortune,  my  lords,  all. 
Go  into  the  outer  hall.  Conyngham,"  continued  the  King, 
addressing  the  Scottish  captain,  "you  were  asleep,  eh?  Where, 
then,  is  Monsieur  de  Bridore?  Why  do  you  thus  allow  me  to 
be  invaded  ?  Pasques-Dieu,  the  meanest  burgher  in  Tours  is 
better  served  than  his  King." 

After  venting  his  anger  Louis  reentered  the  room  ;  but  he 
was  careful  to  draw  the  tapestry  curtains,  which  formed  a 
second  door,  intended  less  for  the  stoppage  of  the  whistling, 
harsh  winds  than  for  the  stifling  of  the  King's  words. 

"So,  my  daughter,"  said  he,  amusing  himself  with  teasing 
her  as  a  cat  does  with  a  mouse,  "  Georges  de  Estouteville  was 
your  lover  last  night  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no,  Sire  !" 

"No?  Ah!  by  Saint-Carpion  !  he  deserves  death.  Did 
the  villain  then  not  think  my  daughter  fair  enougli  ?  " 

"Oh!  that's  not  the  way  of  it,"  said  she.  "He  kissed 
my  feet  and  hands  with  such  ardor  as  might  have  melted  the 
most  virtuous  wife.  He  loves  me  truly  and  in  all  honor," 
she  added. 

"Then  do  you  mistake  me  for  Saint-Louis,  that  I  should 
believe  such  nonsense  ?  A  voung  fellow  made  like  he  is,  to 


360  MAJTRE    CORNELIUS. 

risk  his  life  just  to  kiss  your  little  slippers  or  your  sleeve? 
Tell  that  to  some  one  else." 

"  But  aye,  my  lord,  it  is  true  !  Still  he  came  for  another 
reason." 

Having  uttered  these  words,  Marie  felt  that  she  had  en- 
dangered her  husband's  life,  for  Louis  eagerly  asked  : 

"For  what?" 

The  adventure  amused  him  muchly.  He  certainly  did  not 
anticipate  the  strange  confidences  his  daughter  now  made  him 
after  she  had  stipulated  for  her  husband's  pardon. 

"  Oh,  ho  !  Monsieur  de  Saint-Vallier.  So  you  would  even 
dare  to  shed  the  royal  blood  !  "  cried  the  King,  his  eyes 
blazing  with  fury. 

At  this  moment  the  bell  of  le  Plessis  rang  the  hour  of 
dinner  and  the  escort  of  the  King  to  arms.  Leaning  on  his 
daughter's  arm,  Louis  XL  appeared  with  lowering  brow  on 
the  threshold  of  his  Chamber,  and  there  found  his  guard  in 
attendance.  He  glanced  ambiguously  at  the  Comte  de  Saint- 
Vallier,  as  he  was  thinking  up  the  sentence  he  meant  to  pro- 
nounce on  him. 

The  deep  silence  which  reigned  was  presently  broken  by 
Tristan's  footsteps  as  he  ascended  the  grand  stairway.  The 
grand  provost  entered  the  hall,  and,  advancing  toward  the 
King,  said  : 

"Sire,  the  affair  is  settled." 

"  What,  is  it  all  over  ?  "  said  the  King. 

"  Our  man  is  in  the  hands  of  the  monks.  He  confessed  the 
theft  after  a  screw  of  the  '  question.'  ' 

The  countess  sighed  and  turned  pale  ;  she  was  unable  to 
utter  a  word,  she  could  only  gaze  at  the  King.  That  look 
was  observed  by  Saint-Vallier,  who  muttered  in  an  under- 
tone : 

"  I  am  betrayed  !     The  thief  is  acquainted  with  my  wife." 

"Silence!"  commanded  the  King.  "Someone  there  is 
here  who  tires  my  patience.  At  once,  and  stop  the  execu- 


MAlTRE   CORNELIUS.  351 

tion,"  he  added,  addressing  the  grand  provost.  "Your  own 
body  will  answer  for  that  of  the  criminal,  my  too  prompt 
friend  !  This  affair  must  be  thoroughly  sifted,  I  purpose  the 
doing  of  it  myself.  Set  the  prison*..  Hrge  provisionally  ; 
t  can  always  recover  him ;  these  robbers  have  hiding-places 
that  they  love,  lairs  where  they  lurk.  Let  it  be  made  known 
to  Cornelius  that  to-night  I  go  to  his  house  to  conduct  the 
inquiry.  Monsieur  de  Saint-Vallier,"  said  the  King,  fixing 
his  eyes  on  the  count,  "  I  know  of  your  doings.  All  the 
blood  in  your  body  could  not  pay  for  one  drop  of  mine  ; 
do'st  understand  ?  By  our  Lady  of  Clery  !  You  have  com- 
mitted lese-majeste.  Did  I  give  you  so  sweet  a  wife  that  you 
should  make  her  pale  and  haggard  ?  To  your  house  at  once, 
there  make  ready  preparations  for  a  long  journey." 

The  mere  habit  of  cruelty  made  the  King  pause  at  these 
words  ;  then  he  added  : 

"  To-night  you  set  forth  to  Venice  to  attend  to  my  business 
with  that  government.  You  need  have  no  anxiety  about  your 
wife  ;  she  will  abide  with  me  at  le  Plessis  ;  she  certainly  should 
be  safe  here.  From  this  on  I  shall  watch  over  her  with 
greater  care  than  I  have  done  since  I  married  her  to  you." 

When  she  heard  these  words,  Marie  silently  pressed  her 
father's  arm  as  though  thanking  him  for  his  clemency  and 
good  grace.  As  for  Louis  XL,  he  was  laughing  in  his  sleeve. 

Louis  XI.  was  particularly  fond  of  interfering  in  the  do- 
mestic concerns  of  his  subjects,  and  he  was  every  ready  to 
mingle  his  royal  majesty  in  bourgeoisie  life.  This  taste,  sin- 
cerely blamed  by  some  historians,  was  really  but  a  passion  for 
the  incognito,  one  of  the  greatest  relaxations  of  princes — a 
kind  of  temporary  abdication,  enabling  them  to  put  a  dash 
of  spice  into  their  existence  which  becomes  insipid  for  the 
lack  of  opposition.  Louis' XL,  however,  played  his  incognito 
without  disguise.  On  such  occasions  he  was  always  the  "  good- 
fellow,"  endeavoring  to  please  the  middle-class  whom  he  thus 


362  MAfTRE   CORNELIUS. 

made  his  allies  against  grim  feudality.  It  was  some  time  now 
since  he  had  found  an  opportunity  of  "making  himself 
popular,"  or  taking  up  the  defense  of  some  person  cngarric, 
an  old  term  still  surviving  in  Tours  and  meaning  petty  litiga- 
tion, so  that  he  vehemently  entered  into  the  secret  sorrows  of 
Maitre  Cornelius,  as  also  into  his  anxieties. 

Several  times  during  dinner  he  said  to  his  daughter  : 

"Who,  think  you,  can  have  robbed  my  old  crony?  His 
losses  from  theft  now  amount  to  over  twelve  hundred  thou- 
sand crowns'  worth  of  jewels,  this  in  eight  years.  Twelve 
hundred  thousand  crowns,  my  lords  !  "  he  went  on,  looking 
round  at  the  gentlemen-in-waiting.  "  By  our  lady  !  with 
such  a  sum  a  great  many  absolutions  may  be  bought  at  Rome. 
Pasques-Dieu,  with  such  a  sum  of  money  I  could  have  built 
the  bank  along  the  Loire,  or,  still  better,  have  conquered 
Piedmont ;  a  fine  buffer  all  ready  constructed  for  our  kingdom." 

When  dinner  was  ended,  Louis  XI.  led  away  his  daughter, 
the  physician,  and  the  grand  provost,  with  an  escort  of  men- 
at-arms,  to  the  Hotel  de  Poitiers,  where  he  found,  as  he  ex- 
pected, the  Comte  de  Saint-Vallier  awaiting  his  wife,  most 
likely  to  make  away  with  her. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  King,  "my  instructions  were  for 
your  immediate  departure.  Bid  farewell  to  your  wife,  and  at 
once  proceed  to  the  frontier;  you  will  be  accompanied  by  an 
escort  of  honor.  As  to  your  instructions  and  credentials, 
they  will  be  in  Venice  before  yourself." 

Louis  issued  his  orders,  not  forgetting  to  add  certain  secret 
instructions  to  a  lieutenant  of  the  Scottish  Guard,  to  take  a 
squad  of  men  and  attend  the  King's  envoy  to  Venice.  Saint- 
Vallier  departed  in  haste,  after  giving  a  cold  kiss  to  his  wife, 
which  he  would  have  been  pleased  had  it  been  fatal  to  her. 

When  the  countess  had  retired  to  her  chamber,  Louis  XI. 
crossed  over  to  the  Malemaison,  eager  to  begin  the  unraveling 
of  the  dismal  farce,  lasting,  as  it  had  done,  for  eight  years,  in 
the  house  of  his  silversmith.  He  flattered  himself  that  being; 


MA2TRE   LOKNEL2US.  353 

the  King  he  could  exercise  enough  penetration  to  discover  the 
mystery  of  the  robberies.  Cornelius  did  not  look  upon  the 
advent  of  this  numerous  retinue  without  forebodings  of  woe. 

"And  are  all  these  people  to  take  part  in  the  inquiry?"  he 
asked  the  King. 

Louis  could  not  refrain  from  smiling  at  the  evident  fright  of 
the  old  miser  and  his  sister. 

"No,  crony,"  said  he;  "don't  worry  yourself,  they  will 
sup  with  us  at  le  Plessis ;  you  and  I  will  alone  go  into  the 
matter.  I  am  so  excellent  an  investigator  that  I  will  wager 
ten  thousand  crowns  with  you  that  I  can  find  the  criminal." 

"  Never  mind  the  wager,  Sire  ;  just  find  him." 

They  went  at  once  into  the  strong-room  in  which  the  Flem- 
ing kept  his  treasures.  There  King  Louis,  who  first  asked  to 
see  the  casket  whence  the  Duke  of  Burgundy's  jewels  had  been 
abstracted,  and  then  the  chimney  down  which  the  robber  was 
supposed  to  have  come,  easily  proved  to  the  silversmith  the 
falseness  of  the  latter  supposition,  inasmuch  as  there  was  no 
sign  of  soot  upon  the  hearth — where,  of  a  truth,  a  fire  was  but 
seldom  kindled — and  no  trace  of  anything  having  descended 
the  flue.  Moreover,  that  the  chimney  issued  at  a  portion  of 
the  roof  that  was  practically  inaccessible. 

After  two  hours  of  close  investigation,  marked  with  that 
sagacity  which  distinguished  the  suspicious  nature  of  Louis  XI. , 
it  was  proved  to  a  demonstration  that  no  one  had  forced  an 
entrance  into  the  treasury.  No  marks  of  violence  showed 
upon  the  locks,  inside  or  out,  nor  on  the  iron  coffers  used  to 
contain  the  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  hypothecated  by  wealthy 
debtors. 

"  If  the  thief  opened  this  box,"  said  the  King,  "why  did 
he  take  nothing  more  than  the  Bavarian  jewels?  What  reason 
had  he  for  leaving  this  pearl  necklace  laying  beside  them  ?  A 
queer  robber  !  " 

At  this  remark  the  wretched  miser  turned  deathly  pale;  the 
King  and  he  eyed  each  other  for  a  moment. 
23 


354  MAJTRE   CORNELIUS. 

"  Then,  my  liege,  for  what  did  that  robber  come  here  whom 
you  have  taken  under  your  protection?  And,  also,  why  was 
he  prowling  around  at  night  ?  " 

"  If  you  have  not  guessed,  oh  !  my  crony,  I  command  you 
to  remain  in  ignorance.  That  is  a  secret  of  my  own." 

"Then  I  am  haunted  of  the  devil!"  cried  the  usurer 
lamentably. 

Under  any  other  circumstances  the  King  would  have  laughed 
at  his  silversmith's  cry ;  but  in  place  of  this  he  was  studious 
and  thoughtful ;  he  was  now  casting  on  the  Fleming  a  scrutiny 
peculiar  to  men  of  genius  and  force,  penetrating  to  the  brain. 
Cornelius  was  alarmed  ;  he  thought  he  must  have,  in  some 
way,  offended  his  dangerous  master. 

"Be  it  devil  or  angel,  I'll  have  him,  the  criminal,"  the 
King  abruptly  exclaimed.  "Should  you  be  robbed  to-night, 
to-morrow  I  will  know  who  did  it.  Summon  that  old  hag, 
your  sister,"  he  added. 

Cornelius  slightly  hesitated  at  leaving  the  King  alone  in 
his  treasure  chamber ;  but  the  stern  smile  that  curled  Louis' 
withered  lips  compelled  him.  He,  nevertheless,  hastened  to 
return,  followed  by  the  old  woman. 

"  Have  you  any  flour?  "  demanded  the  King. 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  we  have  laid  in  our  winter  supply,"  she  answered. 

"Well,  go  and  fetch  some,"  said  the  King. 

"What  then  would  you  be  doing  with  our  flour,  Sire?" 
she  exclaimed  in  alarm,  and  not  impressed  in  the  least  by  the 
King's  august  majesty. 

"Old  fool  !  do  you  as  our  gracious  liege  commands,"  cried 
Cornelius.  "And  shall  the  King  lack  flour?" 

"My  good  flour!"  grumbled  she,  as  she  descended  the 
stairs.  "  Is  this  for  what  I  buy  fine  flour?  " 

Then  she  returned  and  said  to  the  King : 

"  Is  it,  Sire,  only  a  royal  fancy  to  examine  my  flour?  " 

Finally  she  reappeared,  this  time  carrying  one  of  those 
coarse  flax-sacks,  which  from  time  immemorial  have  been  used 


MAITRE   CORNELIUS,  365 

in  Touraine  to  fetch  and  carry  provisions  to  and  from  the 
market — nuts,  fruit,  or  grain.  The  bag  was  half  full  of  flour. 
The  housewife  opened  it  and  showed  it  to  the  King,  casting 
a  viperous,  venomous  glance  with  which  old  maids,  as  one 
may  say,  seem  to  squirt  venom  on  a  man. 

"  It  costs  six  sous  the  septeree  or  measure,"  said  she. 

"  What,  then,  does  that  matter?  "  said  the  King.  "  Spread 
it  upon  the  floor,  but  do  it  carefully  so  that  it  may  be  evenly 
strewn — as  if  it  had  been  a  light  fall  of  snow." 

But  the  old  maid  comprehended  him  not.  This  order  dis- 
mayed her  more  than  though  the  end  of  the  world  had  come. 

"  My  flour,  Sire  ! — on  the  ground  !     But — why — 

Maitre  Cornelius  was  vaguely  beginning  to  understand  the 
intent  of  the  King's  doings.  He  grasped  the  sack  and  gently 
spread  its  contents  on  the  floor.  The  old  woman  shuddered, 
but  she  extended  her  hand  for  the  empty  bag,  and  when  it 
was  given  her  by  her  brother  disappeared  step  by  step  with  a 
profound  sigh. 

Cornelius  took  a  feather-duster  and  carefully  smoothed  over 
the  flour  till  it  lay  like  a  sheet  of  snow ;  as  he  did  this  he 
stepped  backward,  the  King  before  him.  and  who  seemed 
much  amused  over  the  proceedings.  When  they  reached  the 
door  Louis  XI.  said  to  Cornelius : 

"  Are  there  two  keys  to  the  lock?  " 

"No,  Sire." 

The  King  carefully  examined  the  structure  of  the  door, 
which  was  heavy  and  strengthened  with  plates  of  iron  and 
strong  bars  of  the  same,  all  of  which  latter  converged  to  a 
secret  lock,  the  key  of  which  Cornelius  only  possessed. 

After  scrutinizing  everything  thoroughly  the  King  sent  for 
Tristan  ;  him  he  ordered  to  set  a  watch  at  night  with  the 
greatest  circumspection  and  secrecy  in  the  mulberry  trees  on 
the  embankment  and  on  the  roofs  of  the  adjoining  houses  ; 
first,  though,  to  assemble  at  once  the  rest  of  his  command 
and  escort  him  back  to  le  Plessis,  so  that  it  might  appear  that 


356  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

the  King  did  not  stay  to  sup  with  Cornelius.  Then  he  told 
the  miser  to  close  his  windows  with  extreme  care,  so  that  not 
a  single  ray  of  light  might  escape  through  them,  and  to  give 
orders  that  he  be  served  with  a  light  repast  to  continue  the 
deception.  Then  the  King  departed  in  much  pomp  for  le 
Plessis  by  way  of  the  embankment,  and  privately  returned 
with  only  two  of  his  suite  to  the  house  of  the  tor$onnier. 
These  precautions  were  so  well  taken  and  carried  out  that  the 
good  folk  of  Tours  and  the  courtiers  really  believed  that  the 
King  had  returned  to  le  Plessis,  and  that  he  was  to  sup  on  the 
morrow  with  Maitre  Cornelius.  The  miser's  sister  still  further 
confirmed  this  by  buying  some  green-sauce  from  the  best 
maker,  who  had  a  store  near  the  quarroir  aux  hcrbes,  after- 
ward known  as  the  carroir  de  Beaune,  in  honor  of  a  splendid 
white  marble  fountain  which  was  sent  from  Italy  as  an  orna- 
mentation for  the  capital  of  his  Province  by  Jacques  de 
Beaune. 

About  eight  o'clock  that  evening,  as  the  King  was  supping 
with  his  physician,  Cornelius,  and  the  captain  of  the  Scottish 
Guard,  conversing  jollily  and  forgetting  for  the  nonce  that  he 
was  Louis  XL,  ill  and  in  danger  of  death,  profound  silence 
was  without,  and  all  passers,  even  the  cleverest  thief,  might 
have  taken  it  that  the  house  was  uninhabited  by  any  but  its 
usual  inmates. 

"I  hope,"  said  the  King  laughing,  "that  my  chum  the 
silversmith  may  this  night  be  robbed,  so  shall  my  curiosity  be 
satisfied.  See  to  it,  my  lords,  that  no  one  leaves  his  chamber 
to-morrow  morning  without  my  order  under  pain  of  condign 
punishment." 

Thereupon  all  went  to  bed. 

The  next  morning  Louis  XI.  was  the  first  to  leave  his 
chamber,  and  he  at  once  proceeded  to  the  door  of  the  treasury. 
He  was  more  than  astonished  to  see,  as  he  went  along,  the 
imprint  of  a  large  foot  along  the  stairway  and  corridors  of  the 


COKN£LWS.  357 

house.  He  carefully  avoided  these  so  precious  footmarks,  but 
traced  them  to  the  door  of  the  miser's  closet ;  this  he  found 
locked  and  without  any  sign  of  violence  or  fracture.  He 
examined  the  direction  of  the  steps,  but  they  became  gradually 
fainter  and  ultimately  left  not  the  faintest  trace ;  it  was  there- 
fore impossible  to  discover  whither  the  robber  had  escaped. 

"Ha!  crony,"  cried  the  King  to  Cornelius,  "you  have 
been  robbed  most  excellently  this  time,  for  sure  !  " 

At  these  words  the  old  Fleming,  terrified  out  of  his  senses, 
hurried  out.  Louis  XI.  made  him  look  at  the  footprints  on 
the  pavements,  and  while  again  examining  himself  for  the 
second  time,  the  King  by  chance  observed  the  old  man's 
slippers  and  there  recognized  the  shape  of  the  sole  of  which 
so  many  copies  were  spread  before  him  on  the  stairs.  He 
said  not  a  word  and  restrained  his  laughter,  for  he  remem- 
bered the  number  of  innocent  men  who  had  been  hanged  for 
this. 

Cornelius  now  hurried  to  his  treasures.  When  he  was  in 
the  room  the  King  caused  him  to  make  a  new  mark  alongside 
those  already  there,  and  he  soon  proved  to  him  that  the  thief 
of  his  treasure  was  none  other  than  himself. 

"  The  pearl  necklace  is  missing  !  There  is  sorcery  in  this," 
cried  Cornelius.  "  I  never  left  my  room." 

"We'll  soon  learn  as  to  that,  now,"  said  the  King.  The 
evident  sincerity  of  the  silversmith  quite  mystifying  him. 

He  at  once  summoned  the  men  of  the  watch  and  asked : 

''  Marry,  now,  what  saw  you  during  the  night  ?  " 

'•  Ah,  Sire  !  "  said  the  lieutenant,  "  a  most  amazing  sight  ! 
Your  majesty's  silversmith  crept  down  by  the  side  of  the  wall 
like  a  cat  ;  so  lightly  withal  that  he  seemed  but  a  spectre." 

"  I  ?  "  exclaimed  Cornelius  ;  this  one  word  he  uttered,  then 
remained  silent,  and  stood  stock-still  and  rigid  like  a  man 
who  has  lost  all  use  of  his  limbs. 

"'  Begone  now,  all  of  you,"  said  Louis,  addressing  the  bow- 
men, "and  tell  Messicur  Conyngham,  Coyctier,  Bridore,  and 


358  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

also  Tristan  to  leave  their  rooms  and  come  here  at  once  to 
mine.  You  have  incurred  the  penalty  of  death,"  said  he  to 
Cornelius,  who  very  happily  did  not  hear  him.  "You  have 
ten  such  on  your  soul  !  " 

Thereupon  the  King  grimly,  but  noiselessly,  laughed,  then 
paused.  But  as  he  remarked  the  strange  pallor  that  overspread 
the  old  man's  face,  he  said  : 

"Be  not  uneasy;  you  are  more  valuable  to  bleed  than  to 
kill.  You  may  escape  the  fangs  of  my  justice  in  consideration 
of  a  good  round  sum  paid  into  my  treasury  by  you  ;  but,  mark 
you,  if  you  build  not  at  least  one  chapel  to  the  Virgin,  you 
are  more  than  like  to  find  that  things  are  made  hot  for  you 
throughout  all  eternity." 

"Twelve  hundred  and  thirty  and  eighty-seven  thousand 
crowns  make  thirteen  hundred  and  seventeen  thousand  crowns," 
replied  Cornelius,  absorbed  in  his  calculations.  "Thirteen 
hundred  and  seventeen  thousand  crowns  hidden — where?" 

"  He  must  have  buried  them  in  some  hiding-place,"  mut- 
tered the  King,  who  began  to  think  the  sum  as  royally  mag- 
nificent. "That  was  the  lodestone  that  ever  attracted  him 
back  to  Tours.  He  smelt  his  gold." 

At  this  moment  entered  Coyctier.  Noticing  the  attitude  of 
Maitre  Cornelius,  he  scrutinized  him  keenly,  the  while  Louis 
XI.  narrated  the  adventure. 

"My  liege,"  replied  the  physician,  "there  is  naught  of  the 
supernatural  in  this.  Your  silversmith  is  a  sleep-walker.  This 
is  the  third  case  I  have  come  across  of  this  so  singular  malady. 
If  you  would  amuse  yourself  by  watching  him  at  such  times, 
you  might  see  the  old  hulks  stepping  without  danger  on  the 
verge  of  the  parapet  to  the  roof.  In  two  other  cases  I  have 
already  studied,  I  could  observe  a  curious  connection  between 
the  actions  of  the  nocturnal  existence  and  the  interests  and 
occupations  of  daily  life  in  which  they  were  engaged." 

"Ah  !   Maitre  Coyctier,  von  are  indeed  most  wise." 

"Am  I  not  then  your  physician?"  he  insolently  retorted. 


MAlTRE   CORNELIUS.  369 

On  hearing  this  reply,  Louis  XL  made  a  slight  gesture 
habitual  with  him  when  a  good  idea  struck  him — he  hastily 
shoved  up  his  cap. 

"At  such  times,"  continued  Coyctier,  "persons  transact 
their  business  when  asleep.  As  this  friend  of  ours  is  fond  of 
hoarding,  he  has  simply  carried  out  his  darling  hobby.  He 
would  most  probably  have  an  attack  when,  during  the  day,  he 
has  felt  much  alarm  for  the  safety  of  his  treasure." 

"Pasques-Dicu  !  and  such  a  treasure!  "  exclaimed  the  King. 

"Where  is  it?"  asked  Cornelius,  who,  by  a  singularity  of 
our  nature,  heard  all  the  remarks  of  the  King  and  his  physi- 
cian, while  yet  practically  in  a  state  of  torpor,  caused  by 
thought  and  the  shock  of  his  misfortune. 

"Ah!"  cried*  Coyctier,  with  a  diabolically  coarse  laugh, 
"somnambulists  never  have  recollection  of  their  acts  when 
they  awake." 

"  Leave  us,"  said  the  King. 

When  Louis  XI.  was  alone  with  Cornelius,  he  glanced  at 
him  and  ejaculated  a  cold  chuckle. 

"Be  it  known,  Worshipful  Master  Hoogworst,"  said  he, 
bowing  ironically  low,  "  all  treasure-trove  in  France  is  the 
property  of  the  King." 

"  Yes,  my  liege,  all  is  yours;  you  are  the  absolute  master  of 
our  lives  and  fortunes ;  but  thus  far  you  have  been  merciful, 
and  have  only  taken  what  you  needed." 

"  Listen  to  me,  old  crony  mine ;  if  I  assist  you  in  recovering 
this  lost  treasure,  you  can  surely,  in  all  confidence  and  with- 
out fear,  agree  to  divide  it  with  me." 

"  No,  Sire,  I  will  not  divide  it ;  I  will  give  it  all  to  you  at 
my  death.  But  what  scheme  have  you  for  finding  it?" 

"  I  myself  will  watch  you  when  you  take  your  nocturnal 
walks.  You  doubtless  would  fear  to  intrust  any  but  me." 

"Ah!  Sire,"  exclaimed  Cornelius,  flinging  himself  at  the 
King's  feet,  "you  are  the  only  man  in  the  kingdom  whom  I 
would  trust  in  such  service ;  and  I  shall  try  to  prove  my  grati- 


360  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

tude  for  your  goodness  to  your  so  humble  servant,  by  doing 
my  utmost  to  promote  the  marriage  of  the  heiress  of  Burgundy 
with  Monseigneur  the  Dauphin.  She  indeed  would  bring  you 
a  noble  treasure,  not  of  crown-pieces,  to  be  sure,  but  of  lands 
which  would  round  off  your  dominions  to  their  greater  glory." 

"  Pshaw,  Dutchman,  you  think  to  hoodwink  me  !  "  said  the 
King,  his  brow  growing  threatening,  "or  you  have  hitherto 
played  me  false." 

"Nay,  Sire,  can  you  then  doubt  my  devotion — you  the 
only  man  I  love?" 

"Words,  words!"  retorted  the  King,  turning  to  face  the 
miser,  and  looking  him  in  the  eye.  "  You  ought  not  to  have 
waited  for  this  moment  to  be  of  use  to  me.  You  are  selling 
me  your  influence — Pasques-Dieu .'  to  me — Louis  the  Eleventh. 
Are  you,  then,  the  master?  Am  I  the  servant?  I  wish  to 
know." 

"Ah  !  Sire,"  said  the  old  man,  "  I  was  but  waiting  to  sur- 
prise you  most  agreeably  with  the  news  of  arrangements  I  had 
made  for  you  in  Ghent ;  I  was  looking  for  confirmation  of  it 
from  Oosterlinck  through  that  apprentice.  What  has  become 
of  him?" 

"Enough!  "  said  the  King.  "This  is  but  a  blunder  the 
more.  I  do  not  like  that  persons  should  interfere,  uncalled 
for,  in  my  affairs.  Enough  !  leave  me ;  I  must  think  it  all 
out." 

Maitre  Cornelius  found  the  agility  of  youth  to  fly  to  the 
lower  rooms  where  he  made  sure  of  finding  his  sister. 

"Ah!  Jeanne,  dear  soul,  we  have  a  hoard  hidden  some- 
where in  this  house  :  I  have  put  away  thirteen  hundred  thou- 
sand crowns  in  jewels  somewhere.  I — I — I  am  the  thief." 

Jeanne  Hoogworst  rose  from  her  stool  and  stood  erect  as  if 
the  seat  had  been  red-hot  iron. 

The  shock  was  so  violent  for  an  old  maid,  accustomed  as 
she  was  to  reduce  herself  by  voluntary  privations  and  fasts, 
that  she  trembled  in  every  limb;  horrible  pains  seized  her 


MAlTRE   CORNELIUS.  361 

back.  By  degrees  her  paleness  increased,  and  her  face — the 
wrinkles  of  which  made  any  change  difficult  to  discover — be- 
came quite  distorted  while  her  brother  told  her  the  malady  to 
which  he  was  a  victim,  and  the  perplexing  situation  in  which 
he  was  placed. 

"  King  Louis  the  Eleventh  and  I,"  said  he  in  conclusion, 
"  have  just  been  lying  to  each  other  like  two  miracle-mongers. 
You  see,  child,  if  he  watches  me,  he  will  learn  the  secret  place 
of  my  hidden  treasure.  Only  the  King  may  watch  my  nightly 
wanderings.  I  am  not  so  sure  that  his  conscience,  near  as  he 
is  to  death,  could  withstand  the  temptation  of  thirteen  hun- 
dred and  seventeen  thousand  crowns.  We  must  be  beforehand 
with  him  ;  we  must  find  this  nest  and  send  the  treasure  to 
Ghent,  and  you  alone '' 

Cornelius  stopped  suddenly  short ;  he  setmed  to  be  weigh- 
ing the  heart  of  his  sovereign,  who  at  twenty-two  years  of  age 
had  dreamed  of  parricide.  When  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
about  Louis  XL,  he  rose  abruptly  like  a  man  in  haste  to 
escape  a  pressing  danger.  At  this  moment  his  sister,  too 
weak  or  too  strong  for  such  a  crisis,  fell  stark  ;  she  was  dead. 

Maitre  Cornelius  raised  her  and  shook  her  with  violence, 
saying : 

"  This  is  no  time  for  dying.  You  will  have  time  enough 
for  that  later  on.  Oh  !  it's  all  over.  Old  hag,  she  never 
could  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time." 

He  closed  her  eyes  and  laid  her  on  the  floor.  But  then 
the  good  and  noble  feelings  which  lay  cumbered  over  in  his 
heart  came  back  to  him,  and,  almost  forgetting  his  hidden 
treasure,  he  pathetically  cried  : 

"Ah!  my  poor  companion,  have  I  really  lost  you?  You 
who  understood  me  so  well  !  Oh  !  you  were  my  real  treasure. 
There,  there,  lies  my  real  treasure  !  With  you  goes  my  peace 
of  mind,  my  affections — all  are  gone.  If  only  you  had  known 
what  good  it  would  have  done  me  for  you  to  have  lived  two 
days  longer,  you  would  surely  have  remained  alive,  if  only  to 


362  MAITRE   CORNELIUS. 

please  me,  my  poor  sister.  Ah  !  Jeanne  !  thirteen  hundred 
thousand  crowns  !  Won't  that  wake  you?  No,  she  is  indeed 
dead  !  " 

Thereupon  he  sat  down  and  said  no  more  ;  but  two  great 
tears  welled  in  his  eyes  and  rolled  down  his  hollow  cheeks  ; 
then,  with  many  an  ejaculation,  he  locked  up  the  room  and 
returned  to  the  King.  Louis  was  startled  by  the  expression 
of  grief  on  the  damp  features  of  his  old  crony. 

"What  now?"  he  asked. 

"Alas!  Sire,  misfortunes  never  come  singly.  My  sister  is 
dead.  She's  gone  below  before  me,"  said  he,  pointing  to  the 
floor  with  a  terrible  gesture. 

"Enough!"  cried  Louis  XI.,  who  disliked  any  mention 
of  death. 

"  I  make  you  my  heir.  I  have  now  nothing  for  which  I 
care.  Here  are  my  keys.  Hang  me,  if  such  be  your  good 
pleasure.  Take  all  ;  ransack  the  house  ;  it  is  full  of  gold.  I 
give  it  all  up  to  you " 

"  Come,  come,  old  friend,"  said  the  King,  half  moved  by 
the  sight  of  this  strange  grief,  "  we  shall  yet  find  your  treasure 
some  of  these  fine  nights  ;  the  sight  of  such  riches  will  give 
you  a  further  heart  to  live.  I  will  come  again  in  the  course 
of  the  week." 

"When  it  pleaseth  you,  my  liege." 

At  this  answer  the  King,  who  had  made  a  few  steps  toward 
the  door,  turned  sharply  around,  and  the  two  men  looked  at 
each  other  with  an  expression  that  pen  or  pencil  would  vainly 
try  to  reproduce. 

"Adieu,  my  crony  !  "  said  Louis  XI.  at  last,  in  a  curt  voice, 
pushing  up  his  cap. 

"  May  God  and  the  Virgin  keep  you  in  their  good  graces  !  " 
replied  the  usurer  humbly,  as  he  conducted  the  King  to  the 
door. 

After  so  long  a  friendship  the  two  men  found  a  barrier  raised 
between  them,  erected  of  suspicion  ;;ml  gold;  though  they  had 


MA1TRE   CORNELIUS.  3t>3 

always  been  as  one  man  on  matters  of  suspicion  and  gold.  But 
then  they  knew  each  other  so  well,  they  had  so  completely  the 
habit,  as  one  might  say,  of  intimacy,  that  the  King  could  di- 
vine from  the  tone  of  expression  in  his  voice  as  he  said  : 
"  When  it  pleaseth  you,  my  liege,"  the  repugnance  he  would 
henceforth  feel  when  he  visited  the  silversmith,  just  as  the 
latter  recognized  a  declaration  of  war  in  the  manner  of  the 
King's  saying  :  "Adieu,  my  crony  !  " 

Thus  Louis  XI.  and  his  treasurer  parted  in  much  doubt  as 
to  what  their  future  conduct  would  be  to  each  other.  The 
monarch,  for  a  truth,  knew  the  secret  of  the  Fleming ;  but  he, 
on  his  part,  could,  by  means  of  his  connections,  bring  about 
one  of  the  greatest  acquisitions  that  any  King  of  France  had 
ever  made ;  namely,  the  domains  of  the  house  of  Burgundy, 
which  were,  at  that  time,  the  coveted  of  every  European  sov- 
ereign. 

Cornelius'  gold  and  influence  could  most  powerfully  aid  the 
negotiations  now  begun  by  Desquerdes,  the  general  appointed 
by  Louis  XI.  to  the  command  of  the  army  then  encamped  on 
the  Belgian  frontiers.  The  celebrated  Marguerite's  choice 
would  be  guided  by  the  good  people  of  Ghent  and  the  inhab- 
itants about  her.  Thus  these  two  master-foxes  were  like  two 
duelists  whose  arms  are  paralyzed  by  some  stroke  of  fate. 

Now,  whether  it  was  that  from  that  day  the  King's  health 
began  to  fail  and  got  steadily  worse,  or  that  Cornelius  did 
assist  in  bringing  into  France  Marguerite  of  Burgundy — who 
arrived  at  Amboise  in  July,  1438.  to  be  married  to  the  Dauphin 
to  whom  she  was  betrothed  in  the  chapel  of  the  castle — certain 
it  is  that  the  King  took  no  steps  toward  finding  the  treasure ; 
further,  he  levied  no  tribute  on  his  silversmith,  and  no  trial 
was  held  ;  so  the  pair  remained  in  a  cautious  condition  of  armed 
neutrality. 

Happily  for  Cornelius,  a  rumor  spread  around  Tours  that 
his  sister  was  proven  to  have  been  the  robber  ;  and  that  she 
had  secretly  been  put  to  death  by  Tristan.  Otherwise,  and  if 


364  MAlTRE   CORNELIUS. 

the  true  history  had  become  generally  known,  the  whole  town 
would  have  arisen  as  one  man  and  hastened  to  destroy  the 
Malemaison  before  the  King  could  have  taken  means  to  de- 
fend it. 

But,  though  these  historical  guessings  may  have  had  some 
foundation  as  regards  the  inaction  of  Louis  XL,  it  was  not  so 
as  to  Cornelius  Hoogworst.  He  was  not  supine.  The  first 
few  days  which  succeeded  the  fatal  one  the  silversmith  spent 
in  a  ceaseless  hurry.  Like  a  carnivorous  beast  confined  in  a 
cage,  he  went  and  came,  lie  smelt  for  gold  in  every  cranny  of 
his  domicile ;  he  sounded  the  walls  ;  he  studied  the  crevices ; 
he  besought  the  trees  of  the  garden,  the  foundations  of  the 
house,  the  turret  roofs,  earth  and  heaven,  to  give  back  his 
treasure.  Often  he  stood  motionless  for  hour  upon  hour, 
casting  his  eyes  around  on  every  side,  plunging  them  into 
space.  He  essayed  the  miracles  of  second-sight  and  sorcery ; 
he  tried  to  see  his  riches  through  space  and  solids. 

One  overwhelming  thought  constantly  absorbed  him  ;  he 
was  consumed  by  a  single  desire  that  gnawed  his  vitals ;  he 
was  more  cruelly  racked  by  the  everlasting  agony  of  the  duel 
he  fought  with  himself  since  his  passion  for  gold  had  turned 
upon  and  rent  him.  It  was  a  species  of  incomplete  suicide, 
embracing  all  the  pangs  of  living  and  dying. 

Never  was  a  vice  so  trapped  by  itself:  a  miser  who  by  in- 
advertence locks  himself  in  his  subterranean  stronghold  that 
contains  his  treasure  has,  like  Sardanapalus,  the  happiness  of 
dying  in  its  midst.  But  Cornelius,  the  robber  and  the  robbed 
in  one,  knowing  neither  the  secret  of  the  one  nor  the  other, 
possessed,  and  yet  possessed  not,  his  treasure — a  novel,  whim- 
sical, but  ever-continuing  form  of  torture. 

Sometimes,  when  he  forgot  himself,  he  would  leave  the  little 
gratings  of  his  door  open,  and  then  the  passers  in  the  street 
could  see  the  little,  weazened  old  man  planted  on  his  two  legs 
in  the  middle  of  his  unfilled  garden,  absolutely  motionless, 
and  looking  on  any  one  who  stopped  to  gaze  at  him  with  a 


MA1TRE   CORNELIUS.  365 

fixed,  glaring  stare,  the  luridness  of  which  froze  them  with 
terror.  If  by  any  chance  he  waited  about  the  streets  of  Tours, 
he  seemed  like  a  stranger  there  ;  he  knew  not  where  he  was, 
nor  did  he  know  whether  the  sun  or  moon  shone  on  him. 
Oftentimes  he  would  ask  his  way  of  those  he  met,  believing 
himself  to  be  still  at  Ghent ;  everywhere  he  seemed  on  the 
hunt  for  his  lost  treasure. 

The  most  perennial  and  the  most  corporeal  of  all  human 
ideas — that  by  which  man  reproduces  himself  by  creating  out- 
side and  apart  from  himself  the  fictitious  being  known  as 
Property — that  mental  demon  had  its  claws  of  steel  perpetually 
clutching  at  his  miser-soul. 

In  the  midst  of  this  torture,  Fear  arose,  with  its  accom- 
panying train  of  sentiments.  Two  men  possessed  his  secret — 
the  one  that  he  himself  knew  not.  Louis  XI.  or  Coyctier 
could  post  their  spies  to  watch  his  movements  when  he  slept, 
they  might  thus  discover  the  unknown  gulf  into  which  he  had 
cast  his  riches,  that  wealth  that  he  had  watered  with  the  life- 
blood  of  so  many  innocent  ones  :  and  Remorse  stood  beside 
Fear. 

To  prevent  during  his  lifetime  the  abduction  of  his  lost 
riches,  during  the  early  days  after  his  disaster,  he  took  every 
conceivable  precaution  to  avoid  sleeping ;  beside,  his  com- 
mercial relations  put  him  in  the  way  of  procuring  the  most 
powerful  anti-narcotics.  His  wakeful  nights  were  most  terrible, 
his  struggles  to  keep  awake  awful — alone  with  night,  silence, 
Remorse,  Fear,  with  all  the  thoughts  that  man,  instinctively 
it  may  be,  has  most  embodied,  in  obedience  to  some  moral 
truth,  as  yet  devoid  of  certain  proof. 

At  last,  this  man  so  powerful,  his  heart  so  calloused  by 
politics  and  commerce,  this  genius  (unknown  to  history),  was 
doomed  to  succumb  to  the  horrors  of  the  torture  he  himself 
had  created.  Crazed  by  some  reminiscence  more  agonizing 
han  any  he  had  as  yet  resisted,  he  cut  his  throat  with  a  razor. 

His  death  was  almost  exactly  coincident  with  that  of  Louis 


366  MA1TRE   CORNELIUS. 

XL;  thus  there  was  nothing  to  restrain  the  violence  of  the 
mob.  The  populace,  unrestrained,  pillaged  Malemaison,  the 
Evil  House.  A  tradition  exists  among  the  older  inhabitants  of 
Touraine  that  a  revenue-farmer,  named  Bohier,  had  discovered 
the  old  usurer's  treasure  and  used  it  in  building  the  castle  of 
Chenonceaux,  that  marvelous  mansion  which,  in  spite  of  the 
lavish  wealth  of  several  kings,  and  the  taste  of  Diane  de  Poitiers 
and  her  rival  Catherine  de'  Medici,  remains  unfinished  to 
this  day. 

Happily  for  Marie  de  Sassenage,  the  Comte  de  Saint- 
Vallier  died,  as  we  all  know,  during  his  embassy  to  Venice. 
The  family  did  not  become  extinct.  After  the  departure  of 
the  count  the  countess  gave  birth  to  a  son,  whose  career  was 
famous  in  the  history  of  France  under  the  reign  of  King  Fran- 
c.ois  I.  He  was  saved  by  his  daughter,  the  celebrated  Diane  de 
Poitiers,  the  illegitimate  great-granddaughter  of  Louis  XL, 
and  who  became  the  morganatic  wife,  the  adored  mistress  of 
Henry  II.;  for  love  and  bastardy  were  hereditary  in  that 
noble  family. 

CHATEAU  DE  SACHE,  November  and  December,  1831. 


GAMBARA. 

TRANSLATED   BY  JNO.   RUDD,  B.  A. 

To  Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Bflloy. 

NEW  YEAR'S  DAY  1831  was  throwing  around  its  packets  of 
sugared-almonds ;  four  o'clock  was  striking;  great  crowds 
thronged  the  Palais-Royal,  and  the  restaurants  were  filling  up. 
At  this  time  a  coupe  stopped  at  the  entrance  and  a  young 
man  of  noble  bearing  alighted ;  a  foreigner  undoubtedly,  or 
he  would  not  have  had  as  attendant  an  aristocratic  chasseur 
wearing  a  plumed  hat.  neither  would  the  panels  have  dis- 
played the  coat-of-arms,  which  the  heroes  of  July  still  sought 
for  the  purpose  of  attack. 

Our  stranger  entered  the  Palais-Royal  and  followed  the 
crowd  around  the  wooden  galleries,  evidently  not  caring  to 
notice  the  slow  progression  he  was  compelled  to  make  by  the 
sauntering  mass  of  humanity ;  he  seemed  born  to  the  noble 
gait,  called  in  derision  the  "ambassadors'  strut,"  and  yet  his 
dignity  had  a  touch  of  the  theatrical.  Although  his  face  was 
grave  and  handsome,  his  hat,  under  which  showed  a  mass  of 
black,  curling  hair,  tipped  the  least  bit  too  much  over  his 
right  ear,  belying  his  gravity  with  a  touch  of  rakishness.  His 
inattentive,  half-closed  eyes  let  fall  an  occasional  contemptuous 
glance  upon  the  crowd. 

"There's  a  handsome  young  fellow,"  said  a  grisette  to  an- 
other one  in  her  company,  as  they  drew  aside  to  let  him  pass. 

"  And  right  well  he  knows  it,  too,"  responded  aloud  the 
companion,  who  was  very  plain. 

After  having  made  a  turn  through  the  arcades,  the  young 
man  alternately  looked  at  his  watch  and  at  the  sky  ;  he  seemed 
to  be  impatient,  and  at  last  went  into  a  tobacconist's  store, 

(367) 


368  GAMBARA. 

lit  a  cigar,  and  stood  for  a  moment  before  the  mirror  to  glance 
over  his  apparel,  which  was  more  ornate  than  the  French  law 
of  good  taste  could  tolerate.  He  pulled  down  his  collar  and 
black  velvet  vest,  over  which  hung  many  festoons  of  those 
heavy  gold  chains  made  in  Genoa;  then, with  one  jerk  of  his 
left  shoulder,  he  satisfactorily  arranged  his  velvet-lined  cloak 
in  graceful  folds,  and  resumed  his  promenade,  paying  not  the 
slightest  attention  to  the  glances  of  the  inquisitive  bourgeois. 

When  the  store  windows  began  to  be  illuminated  and  the 
dusk  seemed  dark  enough,  he  walked  to  the  open  square  of 
the  Palais-Royal  with  an  appearance  of  avoiding  recognition  ; 
he  kept  close  to  the  wall  as  far  as  the  fountain,  under  cover  of 
the  hackney-coaches,  to  thus  reach  the  entrance  of  the  Rue 
Froidmanteau,  a  dirty,  dark,  and  disreputable  street — a  moral 
sewer  which  the  police  tolerate  near  the  purified  precincts  of 
the  Palais-Royal,  the  same  as  an  Italian  major-domo  allows  a 
negligent  servant  to  leave  the  sweepings  from  a  suite  of  rooms 
in  a  corner  of  the  staircase. 

The  young  man  hesitated.  He  had  something  of  the  air  of 
a  middle-class  wife  in  her  Sunday  best  clothes  when  she  fears  to 
cross  a  gutter  swollen  by  the  rain  ;  yet  the  hour  was  not  ill- 
chosen  in  which  to  indulge  some  questionable  whim.  Earlier 
in  the  day  he  might  have  been  detected  ;  later,  he  might  be 
cut  out.  To  have  been  tempted  by  a  glance  more  encour- 
aging than  alluring ;  to  have  followed  a  young  and  pretty 
woman  for  an  hour,  perhaps  for  a  day ;  to  set  her  on  a  pedes- 
tal in  his  own  mind  and  giving  a  thousand  flattering  excuses 
for  her  light  conduct ;  to  find  one's  self  believing  in  a  sudden, 
irresistible  affinity  ;  to  imagine  under  the  flame  of  a  passing  ex- 
citement the  beginning  of  a  love-adventure  at  an  epoch  when 
romances  are  written  because  there  no  longer  exists  the  slightest 
trace  of  romance ;  to  have  dreamed  of  balconies,  guitars,  strata- 
gems, and  bolts  and  Almaviva's  mantle;  to  have  written,  in 
fancy,  a  poem  in  honor  of  this  divinity  ;  and,  after  all  this,  to 
stop  at  the  door  of  a  house  of  ill-fame  ;  to  find  in  the  decorum 


GAMBARA.  369 

of  his  Rosina  a  reticence  enforced  by  the  police,  is  surely  a 
history,  a  delusion  ;  is  it  not,  I  ask,  an  experience  of  many  a 
man,  much  as  he  would  desire  to  deny  it? 

Our  most  natural  feelings  we  confess  the  least  willingly ; 
chiefest  is  self-conceit.  When  the  lesson  goes  no  further  than 
the  door,  a  Parisian  profits  by  it  or  forgets  it ;  so  no  great 
harm  is  done.  With  a  foreigner,  though,  this  is  not  so ;  he 
begins  to  think  his  Parisian  education  may  cost  him  altogether 
too  dear. 

The  saunterer  was  a  noble  of  Milan,  banished  his  country, 
where  some  pranks  of  liberalism  had  led  the  Austrian  govern- 
ment to  suspect  him.  The  Comte  Andrea  Marcosini  had  been 
welcomed  in  Paris  with  that  French  cordiality  always  shown 
to  one  of  a  witty,  amiable  nature  and  of  a  high-sounding 
name,  especially  so  when  accompanied  by  an  income  of  two 
hundred  thousand  francs  a  year  and  a  prepossessing  appear- 
ance. To  such  a  man  exile  meant  but  a  pleasure  tour ;  his 
property  was  only  sequestrated,  and  his  friends  took  means  to 
let  him  know  that  after  the  course  of  a  year  or  two  he  could 
return  to  his  own  country  without  risk. 

After  rhyming  crudelli  affami  with  /  miei  tiranni  in  a  dozen 
or  so  sonnets,  after  also  assisting  as  many  of  the  poorer  Italian 
refugees,  Comte  Andrea,  who  for  his  misfortune  was  born  a 
poet,  thought  himself  released  from  patriotic  concerns.  So 
since  his  arrival  he  had  given  himself  up  without  discretion  to 
the  pleasures  of  every  kind  that  Paris  so  kindly  offers  gratis  to 
everybody  who  may  be  rich  enough  to  buy  them.  His  talents 
and  attractive  person  won  him  success  with  many  women, 
whom  he  collectively  loved,  as  was  natural  to  his  age,  but 
among  all  of  which  he  had,  as  yet,  not  selected  a  particular 
one.  Beside,  in  him  the  taste  for  such  pleasures  was  subordi- 
nate to  the  love  of  music  and  poetry,  gifts  which  he  had 
assiduously  cultivated  since  childhood  ;  he  thought  success  in 
these  realms  more  difficult  of  attainment  and  more  glorious 
than  the  triumphs  of  gallantry,  since  nature  had  spared  him 
24 


370  GAMBARA. 

the  difficulties  which  most  other  men  take  a  pride  in  van- 
quishing. 

Of  a  complex  nature,  like  many  another  man,  he  let  himself 
be  charmed  by  the  comforts  of  luxury,  without  which  he  could 
hardly  have  lived ;  he  held  just  as  tenaciously  to  the  social 
distinctions  rejected  by  his  political  creed.  Thus  his  theories 
as  an  artist,  a  thinker,  and  a  poet  were  often  in  direct  contra- 
diction to  his  tastes,  his  feelings,  and  his  habits  as  an  opulent 
man  of  rank;  but  he  consoled  himself  for  this  seeming  incon- 
sistency by  recognizing  the  same  traits  in  many  Parisians — 
men  who  are  Liberals  from  self-interest  and  aristocrats  by 
nature. 

Hence  it  was  not  without  some  misgivings  that  he  found 
himself  on  foot,  on  December  3ist,  in  a  thaw,  following  at 
the  heels  of  a  woman  whose  dress  betrayed  abject  poverty — an 
inveterate,  long-accustomed  poverty — and  who  was  not  one 
whit  handsomer  than  others  to  be  seen  on  any  evening  at  the 
Bouffbns,  the  opera,  or  in  society,  and  she  certainly  was  not 
as  handsome  as  Madame  de  Manerville,  with  whom  he  had  an 
assignation  that  self-same  day,  and  who,  most  probably,  was 
at  that  moment  awaiting  him. 

But  there  was  a  something  in  the  glance,  half-wild,  half- 
tender,  rapid  yet  intense,  which  that  woman's  black  eyes  had 
furtively  shot  at  him  ;  a  world  of  buried  sorrows  and  stifled 
delights  was  there;  she  blushed  so  fiercely  when,  emerging 
from  a  store  where  she  had  lingered  a  little  while,  her  eyes 
met  those  of  Marcosini,  who  was  outside  awaiting  her  return, 
but  her  look  met  that  of  the  count's  with  equal  candor.  There 
were,  in  short,  so  many  incentives  to  curiosity  that  the  count, 
seized  by  one  of  those  crazy  temptations  for  which  no  lan- 
guage has  a  name,  not  even  in  that  of  the  orgy,  followed  in 
pursuit  of  the  woman  exactly  as  an  old  Parisian  runs  a  grisette 
to  earth. 

As  he  went  aloncj.  sometimes  before,  sometimes  in  her  rear, 
he  examined  the  details  of  her  person  and  dress;  lie  tried  to 


GAMBARA.  371 

dislodge  the  absurd  and  frenzied  desire  that  had  taken  pos- 
session of  his  brain ;  but  soon  his  scrutiny  felt  a  keener  pleas- 
ure than  he  had  experienced  the  day  before  as  he  stood  gazing 
at  the  perfect  shape  of  a  woman  he  loved,  as  she  took  in  her 
bath.  Sometimes  the  unknown  fair,  bending  her  head,  would 
throw  on  him  a  glance  like  that  of  a  kid  tethered  with  its 
head  near  the  ground ;  then,  still  finding  him  in  pursuit,  she 
hurried  on  as  if  to  escape  him.  Nevertheless,  when  a  block 
caused  by  carriages  or  persons  crowded  together  brought 
Andrea  beside  her,  he  saw  that  she  turned  away  from  his 
gaze  without  any  sign  of  annoyance.  These  signals  of  re- 
pressed emotions  spurred  on  the  unruly  dreams  which  were 
running  away  with  him,  and  he  gave  them  a  free  rein  as  far 
as  the  Rue  Froidmanteau,  down  which,  after  many  windings, 
she  suddenly  disappeared,  trusting  that  her  pursuer  would  thus 
find  the  scent  killed  for  him ;  he  was  astonished  at  this  move 
and  had  lost  trace  of  her. 

It  was  dark.  Two  highly  rouged  women,  who  were  drink- 
ing a  liqueur  of  black-currant  in  a  grocery,  saw  the  young 
woman  and  called  to  her.  She  paused  a  moment  on  the 
threshold,  replied  to  their  greeting  by  a  few  gentle  words  and 
passed  on.  Andrea,  who  was  close  behind  her,  saw  her  vanish 
in  one  of  the  darkest  courts  in  the  street,  of  which  he  knew 
not  the  name.  The  repulsive  appearance  of  the  house  which 
the  heroine  of  his  romance  had  entered  turned  his  stomach. 
He  stepped  back  a  few  paces  to  examine  the  surroundings, 
when,  finding  a  villainous-looking  fellow'  at  his  elbow,  he 
asked  for  information.  The  man  rested  one  hand  on  a  knotty 
stick,  and  ironically  answered  in  two  words : 

"Droll  dog  !" 

But  catching  a  full  view  of  the  Italian,  who  stood  in  the 
light  of  a  street  lamp,  his  face  suddenly  assumed  a  wheedling 
expression. 

"Ah  !  your  excuses,  monsieur,"  said  he,  at  once  changing 
his  tune;  "  there's  a  restaurant  in  that  house,  a  kind  of  table* 


372  GAMBARA. 

(fhdte  is  there  served,  where  the  cooking  is  horribly  bad  and 
they  put  cheese  in  the  soup.  Monsieur,  perhaps,  is  in  search 
of  that  place — for  it  is  easy  to  see  that  monsieur  is  an  Italian 
— and  Italians  are  fond  of  velvet  and  cheese.  If  monsieur 
would  like  to  know  of  a  better  eating-house,  I  can  show  him 
one ;  my  aunt  lives  near  by,  and  she  is  very  fond  of  foreign- 
ers." 

Andrea  drew  his  cloak  as  high  as  his  nose  and  rushed  out 
of  the  street,  driven  by  the  disgust  he  felt  for  this  filthy 
creature,  whose  clothing  and  gestures  were  in  keeping  with 
the  squalid  house  into  which  the  unknown  woman  had  dis- 
appeared. He  returned  with  delight  to  the  comforts  and 
elegancies  of  his  suite  of  rooms,  and  passed  the  evening  with 
the  Marquise  d'Espard,  to  cleanse  himself,  if  possible,  of  the 
pollution  of  the  fancy  that  had  taken  such  hold  upon  him. 

Nevertheless,  afterward  when  he  was  in  bed,  in  the  silence 
of  the  night,  his  evening  vision  arose  before  him,  brighter, 
clearer,  more  vividly  than  the  reality.  Before  him  walked  his 
divinity ;  at  times  as  she  crossed  the  street  gutters  she  slightly 
raised  her  dress  and  displayed  a  shapely  leg  ;  and  her  beauti- 
fully mouldered  hips  swayed  at  every  step.  Once  more  An- 
drea wished  to  speak  to  her  and  dared  not.  He,  Marcosini, 
a  noble  of  Milan  !  Then  he  saw  her  once  more  enter  the 
dark  court  and  the  wretched  house,  and  blamed  himself  for 
not  following  her  farther. 

"  For,"  said  he  to  himself,  "  if  it  was  that  she  avoided  me 
and  tried  to  put  me  off  the  scent,  surely  it  is  a  sign  of  her 
loving  me.  With  women  of  this  kind  coyness  is  proof  of 
love.  Possibly  though  if  I  had  gone  further  with  the  adven- 
ture it  might  have  ended  in  disgust.  I'll  just  sleep  in  peace." 

The  count  was  in  the  habit  of  analyzing  his  keenest  sensa- 
tions, as  all  men  born  with  a  good  headpiece  involuntarily  do 
when  their  brain  equals  their  heart  ;  he  was  greatly  surprised 
to  still  find  himself  thinking  of  the  strange  damsel,  not  in  the 
ideal  glamour  of  a  vision,  but  in  all  the  reality  of  the  naked 


GAMBARA.  373 

facts.  And  yet,  if  his  fancy  had  stripped  her  of  the  misery  of 
wretchedness,  the  woman  herself  would  have  been  spoilt  for 
him ;  for  he  wanted  her,  he  desired  her ;  he  loved  her — muddy 
stockings,  broken  shoes,  her  battered  straw  bonnet,  all  !  He 
longed  for  her  in  that  very  house  which  he  had  seen  her  enter. 

"Am  I  then  enamored  of  vice?"  he  asked  himself  with 
horror.  "  Nay,  I  have  not  come  to  that,  I  am  but  three-and- 
twenty  ;  there  is  nothing  of  the  senile  stage  about  me." 

The  very  vehemence  of  the  caprice  of  which  he  was  the 
plaything  seemed  to  somewhat  reassure  him.  This  curious 
struggle,  these  reflections,  this  love  on  a  run  may  be  an  enigma 
to  some  persons  who  imagine  they  know  the  ways  of  Paris  ; 
but  let  such  bear  in  mind  that  Count  Andrea  Marcosini  was 
not  a  Frenchman. 

Brought  up  as  he  was  by  two  pious  abbes,  by  the  instruction 
of  a  pious  father,  who  had  seldom  permitted  him  out  of  their 
sight,  Andrea  had  not  fallen  in  love  with  a  cousin  at  eleven, 
nor  had  he  seduced  his  mother's  waiting-maid  at  twelve  ;  he 
had  not  studied  at  those  colleges  where  the  most  consummate 
teaching  is  not  prescribed  by  the  State  ;  he  had  lived  in  Paris 
but  a  short  time,  and  he  was  yet  on  the  watch  against  those 
sudden  and  deep  impressions  against  which  the  education  and 
customs  of  a  French  education  are  such  a  powerful  aegis. 

In  Southern  lands  great  passions  are  often  born  at  a  glance. 
A  Gascon  gentleman  who  had  tempered  his  sensibility  by 
deep  reflection,  and  owned  a  horde  of  little  recipes  against 
the  sudden  apoplexies  of  the  head  and  heart,  had  one  day 
advised  Marcosini  to  indulge  at  least  once  a  month  in  a  wild 
sensual  orgy,  so  he  might  avert  those  storms  of  the  soul  which, 
without  such  precautions,  were  apt  to  burst  forth  at  inconven- 
ient times.  Andrea  well  remembered  this  advice,  and,  as  he 
sank  to  sleep,  muttered  to  himself: 

"Well,  I'll  begin  to-morrow,  January  the  ist." 

This  will  explain  why  it  was  that  the  Comte  Andrea  Mar- 
cosini so  furtively  skirted  the  line  of  hackney-coaches  to  get 


374  GAMBARA. 

at  the  entrance  of  the  Rue  Froidmanteau.  The  man  of  fashion 
hampered  the  lover ;  he  hesitated  for  some  time,  but,  after  a 
final  appeal  to  his  courage,  the  lover  advanced  with  a  firm 
step  to  the  house,  which  he  easily  recognized.  There  he  again 
stopped.  Was  the  woman  what  he  took  her  to  be  ?  Might 
it  not  be  that  he  was  about  taking  a  false  step  ? 

Just  then  he  recollected  the  Italian  table-d'hote,  and  eagerly 
jumped  at  the  middle  course  thus  offered,  and  which  seemed 
like  to  serve  the  ends  of  his  desires  and  his  repugnance. 

He  entered  the  place,  intending  to  dine  there ;  he  made  his 
way  down  a  greasy  passage,  at  the  end  of  which  he  found, 
after  groping  about  for  some  time,  the  damp  and  slimy  steps 
of  a  stairway,  and  which,  to  an  Italian  nobleman,  must  have 
seemed  little  more  than  a  ladder. 

Attracted  to  the  second  floor  by  the  light  of  a  lamp  placed 
on  the  floor,  and  by  a  strong  scent  of  cooking,  he  pushed  a 
door  which  stood  ajar,  and  saw  a  large  room  dingy  with  smoke 
and  grease,  where  a  woman  was  engaged  laying  a  table  for 
about  twenty  customers.  None  of  the  guests  had  as  yet  ar- 
rived. 

Glancing  around  the  ill-lighted  room,  where  the  paper  hung 
in  strips  from  the  wall,  the  nobleman  seated  himself  near  a 
stove  which  rumbled  and  smoked  in  a  corner. 

The  major-domo  of  the  place,  attracted  by  the  noise  the 
count  made  in  entering,  now  hustled  into  the  room.  Picture 
to  yourself  a  thin,  lank  cook,  very  tall,  blessed  with  a  nose  of 
extravagant  dimensions,  casting  about  him  from  time  to  time 
a  feverish  glance  that  he  intended  to  seem  cautious.  At  sight 
of  Andrea,  whose  dress  and  appearance  bespoke  affluence, 
Signer  Giardini  bowed  respectfully. 

The  count  expressed  an  intention  of  habitually  dining  there 
with  his  compatriots  ;  he  paid  for  a  number  of  tickets  in  ad- 
vance, and  gave  a  friendly  tone  to  the  conversation  to  enable 
him  to  achieve  his  purpose  the  quicker. 

He  had  scarcely  alluded  to  the  woman  he  was  seeking  than 


GAMBARA.  375 

Signer  Giardini  made  a  grotesque  gesture,  looked  knowingly 
at  his  customer  with  a  wink,  and  let  a  smile  curl  his  lip. 

"£asta/"  he  exclaimed.  "  Capisco  /  You,  signer,  are 
brought  hither  by  two  appetites.  The  Signora  Gambara  will 
not  have  wasted  her  time  if  she  has  managed  to  interest  a 
gentleman  so  generous  as  you  seem  to  be.  I  can  tell  you  in 
one  word  all  that  we  know  here  of  the  woman,  who  is  truly  to 
be  pitied. 

"  The  husband  was  born,  I  think,  at  Cremona,  but  he  came 
here  from  Germany,  quite  recently.  He  has  been  endeavor- 
ing to  get  the  Tedeschi  to  try  some  new  music  and  a  new 
kind  of  instrument.  It  is  pitiable,  eh?"  exclaimed  Giar- 
dini, shrugging  hrs  shoulders.  "  Signer  Gambara,  who 
believes  himself  a  great  composer,  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be 
particularly  smart  in  other  directions.  A  fine  fellow  enough, 
occasionally  good-natured,  full  of  commonsense  and  wit, 
especially  when  he  has  drunk  a  glass  or  two  of  good  wine — 
a  not  frequent  occurrence,  for  he  is  frightfully  poor.  He  toils 
night  and  day  in  composing  imaginary  operas  instead  of 
working  for  a  living  as  he  should  do.  His  poor  wife  is 
reduced  to  working  for  all  sorts  of  people,  prostitutes  and  the 
like — sewing  she  does.  Well,  it  can't  be  helped,  she  loves 
her  husband  like  a  father  and  cares  for  him  like  a  baby. 

"  Lots  of  young  men  have  come  here  to  dine  in  hopes  of 
being  able  to  pay  court  to  madame,  but  no  one  has  as  yet 
succeeded,"  he  said,  with  a  significant  emphasis  on  the  last 
word.  "  La  Signora  Marianna  is  virtuous,  sir;  much  too  vir- 
tuous for  her  own  good,  worse  luck.  Nowadays  men  give 
nothing  for  nothing.  The  poor  creature  will  die  in  poverty 

"  You  would  naturally  suppose  that  her  husband  would 
reward  such  fine  devotion,  wouldn't  you?  Bah,  he  doesn't 
even  give  her  one  smile.  The  cooking  is  done  at  the  bakery, 
for,  see  you,  this  devil  of  a  husband  never  earns  a  sou,  but  he 
spends  his  whole  time  in  making  instruments,  which  he  cuts 
and  lengthens,  and  shortens  and  fits,  and  sets  up  and  takes  to 


376  GAMBARA. 

pieces  again  till  they  give  out  squeaks  that  would  scare  a  cat ; 
then  only  is  he  happy.  And  yet  you  will  find  him  the  kindest 
and  gentlest  of  men  ;  he's  not  a  bit  lazy,  no  indeed,  he's 
alway  busy.  To  speak  truth,  he's  mad  and  doesn't  know  it. 
I  have  seen  monsieur  filing  and  forging  those  instruments  of 
his  and  chewing  away  on  his  black  bread  with  an  appetite 
that  I  have  often  envied — I,  monsieur,  who  keep  the  best 
table  in  Paris. 

"  Your  excellenza  shall  learn  before  an  hour  passes  over 
your  head  the  man  I  am.  I  have  introduced  a  number  of 
refinements  into  Italian  cookery  that  will  amaze  you.  Ex- 
cellenza, I  am  Neapolitan,  which  is  saying,  a  born  cook.  But 
of  what  good  is  instinct  without  science  IV  Science  !  I  have 
spent  thirty  years  in  acquiring  it.  See,  then,  to  what  it  has 
brought  me!  My  history  is  that  of  every  man  of  talent. 
My  efforts,  my  experiments,  have  ruined  three  restaurants  in 
succession — one  at  Naples,  the  others  at  Parma  and  Rome. 
Again  reduced  in  this  city  to  making  a  trade  of  my  art,  I  prac- 
tice in  my  ruling  passion  more  than  before.  Some  of  my  finest 
ragouts  I  give  to  these  poor  refugees.  I  ruin  myself.  Folly  ! 
you  would  say?  I  know  this,  but,  then,  can  I  help  myself? 
Genius  is  stronger  than  I ;  is  it  possible  I  can  restrain  myself 
from  creating  a  dish  that  smilingly  allures  me  ?  And  they 
always  know  it,  the  scallawags  !  I  can  make  oath  to  you 
that  they  know  at  once  whether  it  was  my  wife  or  I  who 
handled  the  ladles. 

"And  what  now  is  the  consequence?  Out  of  the  sixty  or 
more  guests  whom  I  used  to  see  at  my  table-d'hote  every  day 
when  I  first  opened  this  wretched  place,  barely  twenty  remain, 
and  most  of  these  want  credit. 

"  The  Piedmontese,  the  Savoyards,  have  quit  me,  but  the 
persons  of  taste,  the  Italians  proper,  remain.  And  for  these 
what  sacrifices  would  I  not  make  !  I  often  give  them  a  din- 
ner at  five-and-twenty  sous  a  head  that  has  cost  me  double 
that  to  prepare." 


GAMMARA.  377 

Signer  Giardini's  little  speech  was  so  redolent  of  Neapoli- 
tan cunning  that  the  count  was  tickled  immensely ;  he  could 
have  fancied  himself  back  at  Gerolamo's. 

"If  such  be  the  case,  my  good  host,"  said  he  familiarly  to 
the  chef,  "and  since  accident,  chance,  and  your  good-nature 
have  let  me  into  the  secrets  of  your  daily  sacrifices,  permit 
me  the  honor  of  paying  double." 

Thus  speaking,  Andrea  flung  a  forty-franc  piece  on  the 
table,  out  of  which  Signor  Giardini  solemnly  returned  him 
two  francs  and  fifty  centimes  in  change,  with  a  mysterious 
ceremony  which  enchanted  the  young  man. 

"In  a  few  minutes,"  continued  the  signer,  "you  shall  be- 
hold your  donnina.  I'll  seat  you  next  the  husband  ;  if  you 
wish  to  get  in  his  good  graces,  talk  music  ;  I  have  invited 
both  of  them  for  this  evening,  poor  souls.  For  New  Year's 
Day  celebration  I  have  prepared  a  dish  for  my  guests  in  which 
I  may  say  that  I  have  surpassed  myself." 

The  words  of  Signor  Giardini  were  drowned  in  the  noisy 
greetings  of  the  said  company,  who  streamed  in  singly  or  in 
pairs,  irregularly,  after  the  manner  of  tables-d'hote.  Giardini 
stood  ostentatiously  by  the  count  and  pointed  out  to  him  the 
regular  company.  He  was  liberal  with  his  quips  and  quirks, 
and  tried  by  his  humorous  remarks  to  bring  a  smile  to  the  lips 
of  this  man  whom,  as  his  Neapolitan  instinct  assured  him,  was 
a  wealthy  patron  who  might  be  turned  to  account. 

"That  man,"  said  he,  "is  a  poor  composer  who  would 
much  like  to  leave  the  ballad  line  for  the  realm  of  opera ;  but 
he  can't.  He  abuses  managers,  music  publishers,  everybody 
but  himself,  who  is  his  own  greatest  enemy.  Don't  you  catch 
on  to  his  rubescent  complexion,  what  jolly  self-conceit,  how 
little  firmness  he  displays  ?  He's  only  cut  out  for  a  ballad- 
monger,  and  nothing  else.  The  other  man  in  his  company, 
who  looks  like  a  match-vendor,  is  a  great  musical  celebrity, 
Gigelmi — the  greatest  of  Italian  conductors.  But  he  is  now 
going  deaf,  and  is  ending  his  days  most  miserably,  deprived 


373  GAMBARA. 

as  he  is  of  all  that  is  attractive  to  him.  Ah  !  and  here  comes 
our  Ottoboni  the  great,  the  most  guileless  old  fellow  on  earth  ; 
and  yet  he  is  suspected  of  being  the  most  vindictive  of  all 
those  who  are  plotting  for  the  regeneration  of  Italy.  I  should 
dearly  like  to  know  why  ever  they  banished  such  a  mild  old 
gentleman " 

Here  Giardini  looked  closely  at  the  count,  who,  aware 
that  he  was  being  pumped  on  the  political  question,  kept  an 
impassibility  that  was  truly  Italian. 

"A  man  who  cooks  for  all  the  world  is  denied  political 
opinions,  excellenza,"  went  on  this  culinary  genius.  "But 
any  one  seeing  that  worthy  man,  who  looks  more  the  lamb  than 
the  lion,  would  say  as  I  do  about  him,  even  to  the  Austrian 
ambassador  himself.  Beside  all,  at  this  day  liberty  is  no 
longer  proscribed  ;  it  is  en  route  again  !  At  least  that's  what 
these  good  people  here  present  fancy,"  he  whispered  in  the 
count's  ear,  "  and  I,  why  should  I  daunt  their  hopes  ?  Though 
I  myself  do  not  hate  an  absolute  government. 

"All  great  talent  is  for  absolutism.  Well,  though  Ottoboni 
is  choke  full  of  genius,  he  expends  time  and  trouble  in  teach- 
ing Italy  ;  he  writes  little  books  to  teach  the  minds  of  children 
and  the  laboring  classes,  and  he  very  cleverly  gets  them  smug- 
gled into  Italy  ;  he  adopts  every  means  to  awaken  a  moral 
sense  in  our  unlucky  native  land,  where,  after  all,  enjoyment 
is  more  desired  than  liberty — it  may  be  they  are  right." 

The  count  still  retained  his  impassiveness,  and  the  cook  was 
unable  to  learn  any  of  his  political  opinions. 

"  Ottoboni,"  he  went  on,  "  is  a  saint ;  very  benevolent  and 
helpful ;  all  the  refugees  love  him,  for  you  must  know,  excel- 
lenza, that  even  a  Liberal  may  have  his  virtues.  Ah  !  here  we 
have  a  journalist  !  "  he  exclaimed,  interrupting  himself,  and 
pointing  out  a  man  who  wore  the  attire  generally  attributed, 
perhaps  more  conventionally  than  truthfully,  to  the  garret 
poet ;  his  coat  was  threadbare,  his  shoes  cracked,  his  hat  shiny, 
his  overcoat  in  senile  decay.  '•  Kxcellenza,  that  poor  man  is 


GAMBARA.  379 

full  of  talent  and  incorruptibly  honest  !  He  was  born  in  a 
wrong  age;  he  tells  the  truth  to  the  whole  world;  people 
detest  him.  He  is  the  theatrical  critic  of  two  little  journals, 
though  he  is  smart  enough  to  write  for  the  great  dailies.  Poor 
fellow  ! 

"  The  others  are  beneath  your  notice ;  your  excellency  will 
easily  learn  about  them  without  my  help,"  he  hastily  added, 
perceiving  that  the  count  was  no  longer  paying  attention  to 
him,  as  the  wife  of  the  composer  entered  the  room. 

Seeing  Andrea  there,  Signora  Marianna  visibly  started  and 
a  blush  tinged  her  cheeks. 

"Here  he  is,"  said  Giardini  in  an  undertone,  pressing  the 
count's  arm  and  motioning  to  a  man  of  tall  stature.  "See 
how  pale  and  grave  he  is,  poor  man  !  His  hobby  is  evidently 
not  cantering  to  his  mind  to-day." 

Andrea's  love-dream  of  Marianna  was  suddenly  overpowered 
by  the  captivating  grace  which  Gambara's  presence  exercised 
over  every  true  lover  of  art.  The  composer  was  forty ;  but 
although  his  high  forehead,  from  which  the  hair  had  flown, 
was  furrowed  with  a  few  wrinkles,  not  deep,  but  in  parallel 
lines,  and  in  spite  of  the  hollow  temples  where  the  blue  veins 
showed  through  the  clear,  transparent  skin,  and  of  the  sunken 
orbits  of  his  dark  eyes  surmounted  by  heavy  lids  and  light- 
colored  lashes,  the  lower  part  of  his  face  made  him  still  appear 
young,  so  calm  were  the  lips,  so  tranquil  the  outline.  It 
could  be  recognized  at  a  glance  that  this  man  had  subserved 
passion  by  the  curb  of  intellect ;  that  he  would  only  grow  old 
from  mental  struggle. 

oo 

Andrea  stole  a  rapid  glance  at  Marianna,  who  was  watching 
him.  The  sight  of  her  glorious  Italian  head,  the  exquisite 
proportion  and  rich  coloring,  revealed  an  organization  where 
all  the  human  forces  were  symmetrically  balanced  ;  he  sounded 
the  gulf  which  separated  this  pair  accidentally  joined  together. 
More  than  pleased  with  this  evidence  of  dissimilarity  between 
husband  and  wife,  he  no  longer  combated  the  feelings  which 


380  GAMBARA. 

drew  him  to  Marianna.  But  for  the  man  whose  only  blessing 
she  was,  he  already  felt  a  touch  of  respectful  pity,  seeing,  as  he 
could  not  help  doing,  the  dignified  and  serene  acceptance  of 
ill-fortune  that  was  expressed  in  Gambara's  melancholy  and 
mild  eyes. 

Expecting  to  find,  from  Giardini's  description,  one  of  those 
grotesque  beings  so  often  set  before  us  by  German  novelists 
and  libretto  poets,  instead  he  found,  to  his  great  astonishment, 
a  simple,  reserved  man,  whose  manner  and  demeanor  were 
aught  but  eccentric,  and  possessed  a  dignity  all  their  own. 
The  dress  of  the  musician,  though  it  showed  no  trace  what- 
ever of  luxury,  was  more  seemly  than  his  extreme  poverty 
would  lead  one  to  expect,  while  his  linen  bore  testimony  to 
the  tender  care  which  watched  over  even  the  minor  details  of 
his  being. 

Andrea  raised  his  moistened  eyes  to  Marianna,  who  did  not 
blush,  though  a  half-smile  curled  iier  lips,  perhaps  called 
forth  by  the  pride  she  felt  in  the  young  man's  mute  homage. 
Too  seriously  fascinated  not  to  watch  for  the  slightest  indica- 
tion that  his  feelings  were  returned,  the  count  began  to  fancy 
himself  beloved  by  her  because  he  saw  that  she  comprehended 
him.  From  this  moment  he  set  himself  to  the  conquest  of 
the  husband  rather  than  of  the  wife,  directing  all  his  batteries 
against  poor  Gambara,  who  unsuspectingly  went  on  eating  the 
bocconi  of  Signer  Giardini  without  knowing  their  taste. 

The  count  opened  the  conversation  with  some  general  re- 
mark ;  but  from  the  first  he  was  conscious  that  the  man's 
intellect,  supposedly  blind  on  one  point  at  least,  was  extra- 
ordinarily clear-sighted  on  all  others,  and  he  saw  that  it  would 
be  far  more  important  to  understand  his  ideas  than  to  attempt 
any  flattery  of  his  whims. 

The  remainder  of  the  guests,  a  hungry  crew,  whose  wits 
were  only  sharpened  by  the  sight  of  a  dinner,  were  it  good  or 
bad,  betrayed  a  positive  animosity  to  Gambara.  and  only 
waited  the  end  of  the  first  course  to  give  vent  to  their  satire. 


GAMBARA.  381 

One  refugee,  whose  frequent  leers  showed  an  ambitious  scheme 
in  connection  with  Marianna,  and  who  seemed  to  fancy  that 
he  could  entrench  himself  in  her  good  graces  by  making  her 
husband  ridiculous,  opened  fire  by  trying  to  explain  to  Mar- 
cosini  the  lay  of  the  land  of  the  table-d'hote. 

"  It  is  quite  a  long  time  since  we  have  heard  anything  about 
the  opera  of  '  Mahomet,'  "  he  exclaimed,  smiling  at  Marianna. 
"  Can  it  be  that  Paolo  Gambara  is  wholly  given  up  to  domestic 
affairs,  the  charms  of  l\\.t  pet-au-feu,*  and  so  neglects  his  super- 
human genius,  thus  allowing  his  talent  to  grow  cold  and  his 
imagination  to  stale?" 

Gambara  knew  all  the  company ;  he  felt  that  he  lived  in  a 
sphere  high  above  them ;  he  therefore  no  longer  took  the 
trouble  to  repel  their  attacks,  he  made  no  answer. 

"  It  is  not  given  to  everybody,"  said  the  journalist,  "  to 
have  an  intellect  that  can  comprehend  the  musical  efforts  of 
Monsieur  Gambara  ;  it  is  for  this  reason,  doubtless,  that  our 
divine  maestro  hesitates  to  produce  his  works  for  the  worthy 
Parisians." 

"And  yet,"  put  in  the  ballad-monger,  who  up  to  now  had 
only  opened  his  mouth  to  cram  into  it  all  the  food  that  was 
within  reach,  "  I  know  some  men  of  talent  who  think  much 
of  the  judgment  of  these  same  Parisians.  I  myself  have  some- 
thing of  a  reputation  as  a  musician,"  he  added  diffidently ;  "  I 
owe  it  solely  to  my  little  songs  in  vaudevilles,  and  the  great 
success  of  my  quadrille  music  in  drawing-rooms ;  but  I  pro- 
pose to  very  soon  present  to  the  world  a  mass  composed  for 
the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Beethoven,  and  I  anticipate  a 
better  understanding  in  Paris  than  elsewhere.  You,  monsieur, 
may  perhaps  do  me  the  honor  of  hearing  it?"  he  said,  ad- 
dressing Andrea. 

"  Thank  you,"  replied  the  count,  "  I  am  afraid  that  I  am  not 
endowed  with  an  understanding  necessary  for  the  appreciation 
of  French  music.  But  if  you  were  dead,  monsieur,  and  Bee- 
*  The  stock-pot;  really  meaning  the  chimney-corner. 


382  GAMBARA. 

thoven  had  written  your  mass,  I  should  have  pleasure  in  at- 
tending the  performance." 

This  retort  effectually  stopped  the  skirmishing  of  the  enemy, 
who  wanted  to  start  Gambara  off  on  his  hobby-horse  so  that 
his  gambols  might  furnish  amusement  to  the  new  guest.  Al- 
ready it  was  repugnant  to  Andrea's  feelings  to  see  a  madness 
so  gentle  and  pathetic,  if  madness  it  were,  at  the  mercy  of 
this  vulgar  wit.  It  was  not  then  with  any  baseness  that  he 
carried  on  a  desultory  conversation,  in  the  course  of  which 
Giardini's  nose  not  infrequently  interposed  between  two  re- 
plies. When  Gambara  gave  expression  to  a  paradoxical  idea, 
the  cook  would  poke  his  head  forward,  to  glance  pityingly  on 
the  composer,  and  to  wink  knowingly  at  the  count  as  he 
whispered  in  his  ear  : 

"Ematto!" 

Presently,  though  the  second  course  demanded  the  attention 
of  the  chef,  and  as  he  attached  extreme  importance  to  this,  he 
was  interrupted  in  his  sapient  remarks.  During  his  absence, 
which  was  only  a  short  one,  Gambara  leaned  toward  Andrea 
and  said  in  his  ear  : 

"Our  worthy  host  threatens  us  to-day  with  a  dish  of  his 
own  concoction,  which  I  would  advise  your  avoiding,  though 
his  wife  has  had  her  eye  upon  him.  The  honest  fellow  has  a 
mania  for  innovations  in  cookery.  He  has  ruined  himself  by 
experimenting ;  the  last  one  compelled  him  to  flee  from  Rome 
without  a  passport,  a  thing  he  never  talks  about.  After  buy- 
ing the  good-will  of  a  famous  restaurant,  he  was  engaged  to 
cater  for  a  banquet  given  by  a  lately  created  cardinal,  whose 
'Household  was  in  an  incomplete  state.  Giardini  thought  the 
time  had  come  for  him  to  distinguish  himself;  he  succeeded. 
That  very  evening  he  was  accused  of  trying  to  poison  the 
whole  conclave  and  was  forced  to  leave  Rome,  and  Italy, 
without  packing  his  trunk.  That  misfortune  was  the  la.^t 

straw,  and  now "  and  Gambara  laid  his  forefinger  on  his 

forehead  and  shook  his  head. 


GAMBARA.  383 

"  In  other  respects,"  he  added,  "  he  is  a  right  good  fellow. 
My  wife  can  inform  you  that  we  are  under  numerous  obliga- 
tions to  him." 

And  now  came  in  Giardini,  carefully  carrying  a  dish,  which, 
with  much  elaboration,  he  laid  upon  the  centre  of  the  table ; 
then  he  modestly  resumed  his  seat  by  Andrea,  who  was  first 
helped.  When  the  count  took  just  one  taste  of  the  mess,  he 
felt  that  an  immeasurable  abyss  separated  him  from  the  next 
mouthful.  He  was  much  embarrassed,  and,  being  anxious  to 
avoid  annoying  the  cook,  he  kept  his  eye  upon  him  and 
studied.  Though  a  French  restaurateur  may  trouble  himself 
but  little  about  what  his  guests  may  think  of  his  cooking,  for 
which  they  must  needs  pay  anyhow,  it  is  otherwise  with  an 
Italian  trattore,  who  is  scarcely  satisfied  with  perfunctory 
praise. 

To  gain  time,  Andrea  paid  extravagant  compliments  to 
Giardini ;  he  leaned  over  to  whisper  in  his  ear,  and  as  he  did 
this  slipped  into  his  hand  a  gold-piece,  begging  him  to  go  out 
and  himself  purchase  some  champagne,  giving  him  the  free- 
dom to  announce  to  the  company  that  it  was  his  own  treat. 

When,  after  a  while,  the  cook  reappeared,  every  plate  was 
cleared,  and  the  room  reechoed  with  praises  for  the  master- 
cook.  Under  the  influence  of  the  champagne  the  Italian 
tongues  were  soon  unlimbered,  and  the  conversation,  till  now 
more  or  less  subdued  in  the  stranger's  presence,  leaped  the 
barriers  of  suspicious  reserve,  and  wandered  wildly  hither 
and  thither  over  the  broad  fields  of  political  and  artistic 
theories.  Andrea,  who  was  guiltless  of  all  intoxicants  but 
love  and  poetry,  soon  controlled  the  attention  of  the  com- 
pany, and  cleverly  led  the  discussion  to  matters  musical. 

"Monsieur  will,  perhaps,  kindly  inform  me,"  he  said  to 
the  composer  of  dance-music,  "how  it  is  that  the  Napoleon 
of  petty  tunes  can  bemean  himself  to  a  struggle  with  such 
people  as  Palestrina,*  Pergolese,  and  Mozart — poor  creatures, 

*  Much  of  this  composer's  music  is  still  popular  in  the  United  States. 


384  GAMBARA. 

who  must  go,  bag  and  baggage,  on  the  advent  of  this  stupen- 
dous mass  for  the  dead  ?  " 

"You  see,  monsieur,"  replied  the  composer,  "a  musician 
finds  it  difficult  to  reply  when  his  answer  needs  the  cooperation 
of  a  hundred  skilled  performers.  Mozart,  Haydn,  and  Bee- 
thoven, without  an  orchestra,  would  have  been  no  great 
shakes." 

"No  great  shakes!  "  cried  the  count.  "Why,  man,  the 
whole  world  knows  that  the  immortal  composer  of  '  Don  Gio- 
vanni '  and  the  '  Requiem  '  was  named  Mozart ;  but  I  am  so 
unhappy  as  to  be  in  ignorance  by  what  name  the  inventor  of 
fashionable  country  dances  is  known " 

"  Music  is  a  being  independent  of  its  execution,"  said  the 
ex-conductor  of  orchestras,  who,  despite  his  deafness,  had 
caught  a  few  words  of  the  conversation.  "  Take  the  C-minor 
symphony  by  Beethoven,  the  musical  mind  is  borne  onward 
into  Fancy's  realm  on  the  golden  wings  of  the  theme  in 
G-natural,  repeated  by  the  cornets  in  E.  He  sees  a  whole 
nature  illuminated  in  turn  by  dazzling  jets  of  light  darkened 
by  clouds  of  melancholy,  inspirited  by  heavenly  strains." 

"Beethoven  is  outclassed  by  the  new  school,"  said  the 
ballad-monger  scornfully. 

"  Beethoven  is  not  yet  understood,"  said  the  count.  "  How, 
then,  can  he  be  excelled?" 

Here  Gambara  drank  a  large  glass  of  champagne,  accom- 
panying his  libation  with  a  covert  glance  of  approval. 

"Beethoven,"  the  count  went  on,  "has  extended  the 
limits  of  instrumentation,  and,  as  yet,  none  have  followed  in 
his  path." 

Gambara  assented  with  a  slight  nod. 

"  His  works  are  specially  remarkable  for  simplicity  of  con- 
struction and  for  the  manner  in  which  the  theme  is  worked 
out,"  continued  the  count.  "  In  the  works  of  most  com- 
posers the  instrumentation  is  vague  and  at  random,  an  inco- 
herent blending  for  a  specious  effect ;  they  do  not  carry  forward 


GAMBARA.  385 

the  progression  of  the  harmony  in  the  movement  by  any  regu- 
larity and  system.  Whereas,  Beethoven  assigns  to  each  part 
its  tone-quality  from  the  indication.  The  same  as  various 
regiments  assist  by  disciplined  movements  in  the  winning  of  a 
battle,  so  do  the  various  orchestral  scores  of  a  symphony  by 
Beethoven  over  the  general  command  for  the  interest  of  the 
whole,  and  are  subordinate  to  an  admirably  conceived  plan. 

"  In  this  respect  he  maybe  likened  to  another  genius.  We 
often  find  in  Walter  Scott's  noble  historical  romances  that  the 
personage  who  appears  to  have  less  to  do  with  the  action  of 
the  story  than  any  other  character  is,  at  the  proper  moment, 
brought  forward,  and  leads  up  to  the  climax  by  threads  woven 
into  the  plot." 

"£  vere/"  said  Gambara,  whose  commonsense  seemed  to 
return  inversely  to  his  sobriety. 

Being  anxious  to  test  the  musician  still  further,  Andrea  for 
the  nonce  abandoned  his  own  predilections  and  proceeded  to 
attack  Rossini's  European  reputation.  He  disputed  the  posi- 
tion which  the  Italian  school  had  captured  by  storm,  night 
after  night  for  thirty  years  on  a  hundred  stages.  He  soon 
found  he  had  enough  on  his  hands.  At  his  first  words  a 
strong  murmur  of  disapproval  arose ;  but  neither  interruptions 
nor  exclamations,  nor  frowns,  nor  contemptuous  looks  were 
now  able  to  check  this  determined  advocate  of  Beethoven. 

"Compare,"  said  he,  "the  productions  of  the  sublime 
composer  with  what  is  by  common  consent  called  the  Italian 
school ;  what  a  paucity  of  ideas,  what  a  limp  in  the  style  ! 
Listen  to  those  monotonous  measures,  those  trite  cadences, 
the  endless  bravura  passages  flung  out  haphazard  irrespective 
of  the  dramatic  situation,  the  ever-recurring  crescendo  brought 
into  vogue  by  Rossini,  and  which  is  now  become  an  essential 
in  musical  composition,  and,  last  of  all,  those  trills,  vocal 
fireworks,  all  combined  in  a  chattering,  pattering,  vaporous 
music,  the  sole  merit  of  which  consists  in  the  fluency  of  the 
singer  and  his  agility  in  vocalization. 
25 


386  GAMBARA. 

"  The  Italian  school  has  lost  sight  of  art's  highest  mission. 
Instead  of  elevating  the  world,  it  has  condescended  to  the 
crowd  ;  its  fame  is  won  by  seeking  the  suffrages  of  the  multi- 
tude, and  by  appealing  to  the  perverted  taste  of  the  majority. 
Its  fame  is  a  street-corner  celebrity. 

"To  say  all,  the  compositions  of  Rossini,  in  which  this 
music  is  embodied,  as  well  as  of  those  writers  who  derive  more 
or  less  of  their  style  from  him,  seem  to  me  to  be  worthy  only 
of  collecting  a  street  crowd  around  a  barrel-organ  or  keeping 
step  to  the  capers  of  a  punch-and-judy  show.  I  prefer  French 
music  even  to  that ;  I  can't  say  more.  Long  live  German 

music!"  he  cried,  " when  it  is  tuneful,"  he  muttered 

ironically  to  himself. 

This  sally  was  the  summing  up  of  a  long  argument  in  which 
Andrea  soared  metaphysically  with  all  the  ease  of  a  somnam- 
bulist on  a  roof.  Gambara,  keenly  interested  in  such  subtleties, 
had  not  missed  a  word  of  the  argument.  At  the  instant  that 
Andrea  dropped  it  he  took  it  up,  and  the  attention  of  the 
company  was  at  once  arrested ;  a  few  who  were  about  leaving 
the  room  returned  to  listen. 

"  You  attack  the  Italian  school  most  vehemently,"  said 
Gambara,  who  was  warmed  to  his  work  by  the  champagne  he 
had  supped,  "  but  that  to  me  is  a  matter  of  indifference. 
Thank  God,  I  stand  outside  all  these  frivolities  of  melodious 
frippery.  Yet  for  a  man  of  the  world  you  show  but  little 
gratitude  to  the  land  from  which  Germany  and  France  de- 
rived their  first  lessons.  While  the  compositions  of  Carissimi, 
Cavalli,  Scarlatti,  Rossi,  were  being  played  through  all  Italy, 
the  violinists  of  the  French  opera  enjoyed  the  singular  privi- 
lege of  being  allowed  to  play  their  instruments  with  gloved 
hands.  Lulli,  who  so  much  extended  the  realm  of  harmony, 
and  who  first  gave  the  rule  of  discords,  on  arriving  in  France 
found  only  two  men,  a  cook  and  a  mason,  who  had  voice  and 
intelligence  enough  to  execute  his  music  ;  of  the  first  he  made 
a  tenor,  and  the  latter  he  made  a  bass.  At  that  time  Germans, 


GAMBARA.  387 

always  excepting  Sebastian  Bach,  were  ignorant  of  music. 
But,  monsieur,"  added  Gambara,  in  the  humble  tone  of  a 
man  who  realizes  that  his  remarks  will  be  received  with  scorn, 
if  not  ill-will,  "  you  must,  although  young,  have  studied  the 
higher  questions  of  musical  art  for  a  long  time,  or  you  could 
not  so  clearly  explain  them." 

These  words  caused  a  smile  in  many  of  the  hearers,  for  they 
had  not  understood  the  fine  distinction  of  Andrea's  views. 
Giardini,  convinced  that  the  count  was  only  talking  at  ran- 
dom, nudged  him  warily,  laughing  in  his  sleeve  at  the  hoax 
in  which  he  thought  himself  an  accomplice. 

"There  is  much  that  strikes  me  as  being  very  true  in  what 
you  have  said,"  Gambara  went  on;  "but  take  care.  Your 
argument,  while  it  brands  Italian  sensualism,  seems  to  incline 
somewhat  to  German  idealism,  which  is  a  not  less  fatal  error. 
If  men  of  imagination  and  good  taste,  like  yourself,  desert 
one  field  only  to  stray  into  the  other,  if  they  cannot  remain 
neutral  between  two  extremes,  we  shall  always  be  subject  to 
the  satire  of  the  sophists  who  deny  progress  and  liken  human 
genius  to — to  this  table-cloth,  which,  being  too  short  to  wholly 
cover  Signer  Giardini's  table,  decks  one  end  at  the  expense 
of  the  other." 

Giardini  bounded  in  his  chair  as  though  he  had  been  stung 
by  a  gad-fly,  but  quick  reflection  restored  his  dignity  as  a 
host ;  he  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  again  poked  the  count, 
who  was  beginning  to  think  the  cook  more  crazy  than  Gam- 
bara. 

The  serious  and  even  religious  manner  in  which  the  latter 
spoke  of  art  interested  Marcosini  extremely.  Seated  betweeu 
these  two  manias,  one  so  noble,  the  other  so  vulgar,  and  mak- 
ing game  of  both,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  crowd,  the 
count  felt  as  if  he  was  continually  being  tossed  about  from 
the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous — the  two  extravaganzas  of  the 
comedy  of  human  life.  Suddenly  breaking  the  chain  of  the 
fantastic  events  which  had  led  him  to  this  smoky  den,  he  fan- 


388  GAMBARA. 

cied  himself  the  victim  of  some  strange  hallucination,  and 
began  to  believe  that  Gambara  and  Giardini  were  two  ab- 
stractions. 

Presently,  after  a  last  piece  of  buffoonery  on  the  part  of  the 
deaf  orchestra  leader,  directed  at  Gambara,  the  company  re- 
tired amid  roars  of  laughter ;  Giardini  went  off  to  make 
coffee  he  intended  offering  his  guests  remaining  and  his  dis- 
tinguished patron  ;  and  his  wife  meanwhile  cleared  the  table. 
The  count  was  seated  near  the  stove  and  between  Marianna 
and  Gambara,  and  in  the  precise  position  that  the  latter  had 
declared  to  be  so  desirable — midway  between  sensualism  on 
the  one  hand  and  idealism  on  the  other.  Gambara,  who  for 
the  first  time  met  a  man  who  did  not  laugh  at  him  to  his  face, 
soon  left  off  generalizing  and  began  to  speak  of  himself,  his 
life,  his  toil,  and  his  hopes  of  a  final  musical  redemption  of 
which  he  believed  himself  to  be  the  Messiah. 

"Hearken  to  me,"  said  he,  "ye  that  have  thus  far  not 
laughed  me  to  scorn  ;  I  will  tell  you  my  life — not  that  I  may 
extol  a  constancy  which  does  not  emanate  from  my  own  self, 
but  for  the  glory  of  One  who  has  placed  this  force  in  my  soul. 
You  seem  to  be  good  and  reverent ;  if  you  cannot  believe  in 
me,  you  at  least  can  extend  me  your  sympathy ;  pity  comes  of 
man,  faith  is  God." 

Andrea,  who  blushed  crimson,  turned  amd  withdrew  his 
foot  which  had  been  seeking  M.irianna's,  and  fixed  his  gaze 
upon  her  while  he  listened  to  her  husband. 

"I  was  born  at  Cremona,"  continued  Gambara,  "  the  son 
of  an  instrument-maker ;  a  fairly  good  performer  of  music, 
but  a  far  better  composer.  I  had  thus  at  an  early  age  mastered 
the  laws  of  composition  in  its  dual  aspect,  the  spiritual  and 
material ;  and,  with  the  natural  curiosity  of  my  age,  I  paid 
attention  to  many  things  which  I  afterward  applied  in  my 
more  mature  manhood. 

"The  French  invasion  drove  us.  my  father  and  myself,  from 
our  home.  We  were  ruined  by  the  war.  From  the  age  of  ten 


CAMBARA.  389 

I  began  that  wandering  life  to  which  all  men  are  condemned 
who  revolve  in  their  brain  reforms  in  art,  science,  or  politics. 
Fate,  or  the  natural  instincts  of  their  minds,  which  never  gee 
with  those  of  ordinary  comprehension,  leads  them  onward, 
providentially,  to  points  where  they  receive  instruction.  Led 
by  my  passion  for  music  I  wandered  through  Italy  from  theatre 
to  theatre,  living  on  little,  as  mea  can  live  there.  Sometime 
I  played  the  violoncello  in  orchestras ;  often  I  formed  one  of 
the  chorus ;  or  worked  in  the  wings  with  the  carpenters.  Thus 
I  studied  music  in  its  every  aspect,  learned  the  tones  of  the 
human  voice  and  instruments,  in  what  manner  they  differed 
from  each  other ;  I  listened  carefully  to  the  scores  and  noted 
the  harmonizing,  always  applying  the  rules  taught  by  my  father. 
Often,  again,  I  traveled  through  the  country  mending  instru- 
ments. It  was  a  hard  life  in  a  land  where  the  sun  ever  shines, 
where  art  permeates  the  air  and  money  is  not — at  least  for  the 
artist,  since  Rome  is  no  longer,  save  in  name  only,  the  sover- 
eign of  the  Christian  world. 

"Sometimes  I  was  gladly  welcomed,  at  times  driven  forth 
because  of  my  poverty ;  yet  I  never  lost  heart ;  I  heard  an 
inner  voice  foretelling  fame.  Music  to  me  seemed  but  in  its 
infancy.  That  opinion  is  still  retained. 

"All  that  we  still  have  of  the  musical  efforts  anterior  to  the 
seventeenth  century  demonstrates  to  me  that  ancient  com- 
posers knew  melody  only  ;  they  were  ignorant  of  harmony  and 
its  vast  resources.  Music  is  both  science  and  art.  It  is  rooted 
in  physics  and  mathematics,  hence  a  science ;  its  inspiration 
makes  it  an  art,  unconsciously  employing  the  propositions  of 
science.  It  derives  from  the  physical  by  the  very  essence  of 
the  matter  on  which  it  subsists.  Sound  is  air  in  motion  ;  air 
is  made  up  of  elements  which  undoubtedly  find  within  us  anal- 
agous  constituents  which  respond  to  them,  which  sympathize 
with  and  augment  them  by  the  power  of  the  intellect.  Thus 
air  must  contain  as  many  varieties  of  elastic  molecules,  capable 
of  vibrating  in  as  many  diverse  periods  as  there  are  tones  in 


390  GAMBARA. 

all  sonorous  bodies;  and  these  particles,  put  in  motion  by  the 
musician  and  received  by  the  ear,  respond  to  our  ideas  in 
accord  with  our  several  organizations.  It  is  my  opinion  that 
the  nature  of  sound  is  identical  with  that  of  light.  Sound  is 
light  under  a  different  form  ;  both  act  by  vibrations  which  are 
sentient  to  man,  and  which  he  transforms  in  his  nerve-centres 
into  ideas. 

"  Music  is  analogous  to  painting,  making  use  of  materials 
that  possess  the  property  of  freeing  this  or  that  property  of 
the  birth  substance  in  suggesting  a  picture.  So  in  music  the 
instruments  perform  this  part,  as  does  color  in  the  painting. 
Now,  as  all  sound  produced  by  a  reverberating  body  is  in- 
variably accompanied  by  its  major  third  and  fifth,  whereby  it 
acts  on  grains  of  sand  spread  upon  a  plain  of  stretched 
parchment  and  arranges  them  in  geometrical  figures — always 
the  same  in  form  according  to  the  pitch — regular  when  the 
harmony  is  a  true  chord,  but  without  definity  under  the  influ- 
ence of  discords,  I  say  that  music  is  an  art  conceived  in 
Nature's  very  womb." 

Gambara's  calm  eyes  were  fixed  upon  Marcosini,  who  lis- 
tened with  rapt  attention. 

"  It  is  that  music  is  subject  to  both  physical  and  mathemat- 
ical laws,"  he  went  on.  "The  physical  laws  are  but  little 
understood,  the  mathematical  laws  are  somewhat  more  fully 
comprehended  ;  and,  since  their  relationship  has  been  more 
studied,  it  has  enabled  those  creations  of  harmony  to  be  effected 
which  we  owe  to  the  genius  of  Mozart,  Haydn,  Beethoven, 
and  Rossini,  men  of  glorious  genius,  whose  music  is  unques- 
tionably nearer  perfection  than  that  of  their  predecessors,  for 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  latter's  genius  is  incontestable. 
The  old  masters  could  create  melody,  but  they  had  none  of 
the  resources  of  art  and  science  at  command — that  noble  alli- 
ance which  blends  into  a  grand  whole  the  beauties  of  melody 
and  the  power  of  harmony. 

"Now,  if  a  knowledge  of  the  mathematical   laws  of  music 


GAMBARA.  391 

gave  these  four  musicians  to  us,  to  what  height  may  we  not 
attain  if  we  can  succeed  in  discovering  the  physical  laws  by 
virtue  of  which  (please  note  this)  we  may  store  up  in  a  greater 
or  less  quantity,  according  to  the  proportions  required,  a  cer- 
tain ethereal  substance  diffused  in  the  air,  which  gives  us  music 
as  it  gives  us  light,  the  phenomena  of  vegetation  and  animal 
life  !  Do  you  grasp  my  meaning? 

"  These  new  laws  would  arm  the  composer  with  new  powers; 
it  would  supply  him  with  instruments  superior  to  those  now 
used,  and,  more  than  possibly,  with  a  potency  of  harmony  than 
that  which  dictates  the  realm  of  music  at  this  time.  If  every 
modulation  obeys  a  power,  we  must  need  learn  that  power  that 
we  may  be  enabled  to  couple  these  forces  in  accordance  with 
their  appropriate  laws.  Just  now  composers  are  working  on 
substances  unknown  to  them. 

"Why  should  an  instrument  of  metal  and  one  of  wood,  say 
a  bassoon  and  a  cornet,  have  so  little  resemblance  of  tone, 
though  they  act  on  the  same  matter,  in  the  same  manner,  on 
the  constituent  gases  of  the  atmosphere  ?  Their  dissimilarities 
must  come  either  from  some  decomposition  of  these  gases  or 
by  the  assimilation  of  affinities,  whence  they  return  modified  by 
the  influence  of  some  force  unknown  to  us.  Could  we  only 
discover  what  those  faculties  are,  then  science  and  art  would 
be  immense  gainers.  Whatever  extends  science  enhances 
art. 

"Well!"  he  exclaimed,  after  a  short  pause,  "as  to  these 
discoveries!  I  have  traced,  I  have  made  them  !  Yes,"  said 
Gambara,  with  more  and  more  vehemence,  "  up  to  now  man 
has  noted  the  effect  less  than  the  cause.  If  he  could  but 
penetrate  cause,  music  would  be  the  greatest  of  the  arts. 
Is  it  not  the  one  that  drives  deepest  in  the  soul  ?  In  painting 
you  see  no  more  than  the  picture  shows ;  in  poetry  you  hear 
only  what  the  poet  speaks ;  music  goes  far  beyond  this — it 
forms  thought,  it  rouses  torpid  memory.  Take  a  thousand 
souls  present  at  a  concert ;  a  strain  speeds  forth  from  Pasta's 


392  GAMBARA. 

throat,  executing  so  masterly  the  thoughts  that  shone  in 
Rossini's  soul  as  he  wrote  the  passage;  that  single  phrase 
of  the  master,  transmitted  to  attentive  souls,  develops  in 
them  as  many  diverse  poems.  To  one  it  shows  a  woman 
long  dreamed  of  and  desired ;  to  another  some  shore  anon 
he  traversed,  where  rising  before  him  are  the  drooping  willows, 
its  clear  waters,  and  the  hopes  that  danced  with  him  beneath 
the  leafy  coverts.  This  woman  is  recalled  to  the  throng  of 
feelings  that  tortured  her  in  an  hour  of  jealous  rage;  another 
one  sees  the  unsatisfied  longings  of  her  heart,  which  is  painted 
by  her  mind  in  the  rich  hues  of  a  dream,  the  ideal  lover  to 
whom  she  would  fain  abandon  herself  with  the  rapture  of  the 
woman  in  the  Roman  mosaic,  who  is  seen  embracing  a 
chimera ;  yet  another  dreams  of  desires  about  to  be  gratified, 
she  plunges  in  anticipation  into  a  torrent  of  delight  whose 
raging  waves  of  feeling  surge  about  and  break  upon  her  burn- 
ing bosom.  Music  alone  has  power  to  make  us  return  unto 
ourselves  ;  all  other  arts  give  but  limited  pleasures.  But  I  am 
digressing. 

"  Such,  then,  were  my  first  ideas,  vague  it  may  be,  for  an 
inventor  in  his  inception  only  catches  a  faint  glimpse  of  the 
dawn.  I  kept  these  glorious  ideas  at  the  bottom  of  my  knap- 
sack ;  they  gave  me  spirit  to  eat  the  dry  crusts  as  I  gayly 
soaked  them  in  the  waters  of  a  spring.  I  worked,  I  composed 
airs,  and  after  I  had  played  them  on  some  instrument,  the  first 
one  to  hand,  I  resumed  my  travels  through  Italy.  At  last, 
when  I  was  two-and-twenty,  I  settled  in  Venice,  where  for  the 
first  time  I  enjoyed  rest  and  gained  a  fair  competence.  There 
I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  Venetian  nobleman,  who  was 
taken  with  my  ideas;  he  encouraged  me  in  my  investigations 
and  procured  me  employment  at  the  Fenice  theatre.  In 
Venice  living  is  cheap  and  lodgings  cost  but  little.  I  had  a 
room  in  the  Palazzo  Capello  whence  the  celebrated  Bianca 
issued  one  night  to  become  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Tuscany  and 
Queen  of  Cyprus. 


GAMBARA.  393 

"  And  there  I  would  dream  that  at  some  future  time  my 
hidden  fame  would  issue  thence  to  be  like  her,  crowned. 

"  My  evenings  were  spent  at  the  theatre,  my  days  in  work. 
But  disaster  came.  The  representation  of  an  opera,  '  The 
Martyrs,'  in  which  I  had  experimented  with  my  music,  was  a 
failure.  No  one  could  understand  my  score.  Place  Beetho- 
ven before  the  Italians  and  they  cannot  gauge  him.  No  one 
had  the  patience  to  await  an  effect  to  be  produced  by  the 
different  motifs  given  out  by  each  instrument,  all  intended  to 
at  last  unite  in  one  grand  harmony. 

"  I  had  founded  my  hopes  on  the  success  of  the  '  Martiri,' 
for  we  ever  discount  success,  we  disciples  of  the  azure  god- 
dess— Hope.  When  a  man  thinks  himself  destined  to  pro- 
duce great  thoughts,  it  becomes  difficult  to  believe  that  they 
are  not  achieved ;  the  cask  has  chinks  through  which  the  light 
will  shine. 

"In  the  same  palace  resided  my  wife's  family;  and  the 
hope  of  winning  Marianna,  who  frequently  smiled  on  me 
from  her  window,  had  greatly  stimulated  my  efforts. 

"  I  now  fell  into  a  state  of  dark  melancholy,  as  I  sounded 
the  depths  of  the  abyss  into  which  I  had  fallen  ;  for  before  me 
I  saw  naught  but  a  life  of  poverty — a  ceaseless  struggle  in 
which  love  must  perish. 

"  Marianna  acted  as  genius  does;  she  bounded  over  every 
obstacle,  both  feet  at  once.  I  will  not  speak  of  the  slender 
happiness  which  gilded  the  early  days  of  my  misfortunes. 
Dismayed  by  my  failure,  I  felt  that  Italy  was  but  dull  of  com- 
prehension and  too  much  under  the  influence  of  the  routine 
chorus  to  be  prepared  to  receive  the  innovations  I  meditated  ; 
so  I  turned  my  thoughts  to  Germany. 

"As  I  traveled  to  that  country,  which  I  did  by  way  of 
Hungary,  I  paid  heed  to  the  manifold  voices  of  nature ;  I 
tried  to  reproduce  those  sublime  harmonies  by  the  assistance 
of  instruments  which  I  wholly  constructed  or  changed  for  the 
purpose.  These  experiments  necessitated  enormous  outlay, 


394  GAMBARA. 

and  soon  exhausted  our  slender  savings.  And  still  this  was 
the  happiest  time  of  our  lives ;  I  was  appreciated  in  Germany. 
Never  was  my  life  so  glorious  as  then.  I  know  of  nothing  to 
compare  with  the  tumultuous  joys  that  filled  me  in  Marianna's 
presence,  whose  beauty  was  then  in  all  its  celestial  radiancy 
and  power.  I  was  happy. 

"  More  than  once  during  these  hours  of  weakness  I  ex- 
pressed my  passion  in  the  language  of  terrestrial  harmony.  I 
even  composed  some  of  those  melodies  which  resemble  geomet- 
rical figures,  which  are  so  much  prized  in  the  world  in  which 
we  live.  But  so  soon  as  I  gained  success,  insurmountable 
obstacles  were  placed  in  my  path  by  rivals,  envious  or  un- 
appreciative. 

"I  had  heard  of  France  as  a  country  which  welcomed  in- 
novations ;  thither  I  resolved  to  go ;  my  wife  provided  the 
means  and  we  came  to  Paris. 

"  Before  this  no  one  had  ever  actually  laughed  in  my  face ; 
but  in  this  dreadful  city  I  had  to  undergo  this  new  form  of 
torture,  to  which  was  added  the  keen  anguish  of  miserable 
poverty.  Compelled  to  sojourn  in  this  fever-stricken  quarter, 
for  many  months  we  have  lived  on  Marianna's  work  ;  she  does 
sewing  for  the  wretched  prostitutes  who  make  this  horrid  street 
their  stamping  ground.  Marianna  tells  me  that  she  is  treated 
with  deference  and  generosity,  which  I,  for  my  part,  ascribe 
to  the  ascendency  of  a  so  pure  virtue  that  even  vice  itself  must 
needs  respect  it." 

"Hope  on,"  said  Andrea.  "Perhaps  you  have  reached 
the  end  of  your  trials.  My  efforts  shall  be  united  to  yours, 
and  it  may  be  that  your  labors  will  yet  be  seen  in  their  true 
light ;  permit  me,  in  the  meanwhile,  as  a  compatriot  and  an 
artist  like  yourself,  to  offer  you  in  advance  some  part,  however 
small,  of  your  inevitable  future  gains." 

"  All  that  has  to  do  with  my  material  life  is  my  wife's  affair 
alone,"  replied  Gambara.  "  She  it  is  who  must  decide  whether 
without  humiliation  we  can  accept  the  assistance  of  an  honor- 


GAMBARA.  395 

able  man,  as  you  seem  to  be.  For  myself,  who  have  been  led 
to  make  you  this  long-drawn  confidence,  I  must  beg  your 
permission  to  retire.  A  melody  beckons  me  ;  it  starts  dan- 
cingly  before  me ;  bare,  quivering,  like  a  beautiful  girl  entreat- 
ing her  lover  for  the  clothes  he  has  hidden.  Adieu,  I  go  to 
dress  my  mistress.  My  wife  I  leave  with  you." 

He  hastened  away  like  a  man  who  blames  himself  for  losing 
valuable  time,  and  Marianna,  somewhat  embarrassed,  prepared 
to  follow  him. 

Andrea  dared  not  detain  her. 

Giardini  however  came  to  the  rescue. 

"  But,  signorina,"  said  he,  "did  not  you  hear  your  husband 
tell  you  to  settle  some  business  with  the  signer  count  ?  " 

Marianna  resumed  her  seat,  but  without  looking  at  Andrea, 
who  hesitated  about  addressing  her. 

"And  will  not  Signor  Gambara's  confidence,"  he  at  length 
said,  in  a  voice  of  emotion,  "  also  win  for  me  that  of  his 
wife's  ?  Will  la  bella  Marianna  refuse  to  give  me  the  history 
of  her  life?" 

"  My  life  ?  "  answered  Marianna  ;  "  my  life,  it  is  that  of  the 
ivy.  If  you  would  ask  the  story  of  my  heart,  you  must  sup- 
pose me  equally  devoid  of  pride  and  modesty  after  listening 
to  what  you  have  just  heard." 

"Of  whom  then  shall  I  ask  it?"  cried  the  count,  whose 
passion  was  blinding  his  wit. 

"Of  yourself!"  replied  Marianna.  "You  have  either 
understood  me,  or  you  never  will.  Ask  yourself." 

"  I  will,  but  you  must  listen  to  me.  I  take  your  hand,  it 
is  to  lay  in  mine  so  long  as  I  tell  your  story  truthfully." 

"  I  listen,"  said  Marianna. 

"  The  life  of  a  woman  begins  with  her  first  passion,"  said 
Andrea.  "And  my  dear  Marianna  began  to  live  only  on  the 
day  when  she  first  saw  Paolo  Garnbara.  Her  nature  needed 
a  deep  passion  to  afford  it  joy ;  more  than  all  she  needed  some 
pathetic  feebleness  to  sustain  and  protect.  The  lovely  female 


396  GAMBARA. 

nature  with  which  she  is  endowed  is  perhaps  less  amenable  to 
passion  than  maternity. 

"  You  sigh,  Marianna  ;  have  I  then  laid  a  finger  on  an  open 
wound  ?  You  took  upon  yourself  a  noble  part,  young  as  you 
were,  in  protecting  a  noble,  distraught  intellect.  You  said  to 
yourself :  '  Paolo  shall  be  my  genius,  I  will  be  his  common- 
sense  ;  between  us  we  shall  almost  be  that  well-nigh  divine 
being  that  men  term  angel  ;  that  sublime  creature  which  en- 
joys and  comprehends,  while  reason  never  stifles  love.' 

"  In  the  first  transports  of  youth,  you  heard  the  thousand 
voices  of  nature  which  your  poet  longed  to  reproduce.  En- 
thusiasm seized  your  soul  when  Paolo  spread  before  you  those 
treasures  of  poetry  as  he  vainly  searched  for  their  equivalent, 
striving  to  embody  them  in  the  sublime  but  limited  language 
of  his  art.  You  admired  him  as  an  ecstatic  rapture  carried 
him  high  above  you,  for  you  loved  to  think  that  all  this  errant 
energy  would  finally  fall  and  alight  upon  you  as  love.  You 
did  not  realize  the  tyrannous  and  jealous  empire  which  thought 
maintains  over  the  minds  of  those  who  are  subject  to  it. 
Gambara  before  he  knew  you  was  the  slave  of  that  proud, 
vindictive  mistress  with  whom  you  have  been  combating 
against  for  him  to  this  day.  Once,  for  an  instant,  happiness 
was  opened  before  you. 

"  Paolo,  fallen  from  the  lofty  sphere  where  his  mind  was 
ever  soaring,  was  amazed  to  find  a  reality  so  sweet ;  so  sweet 
that  you  may  well  have  believed  that  his  mania  would  forever 
slumber  in  your  arms.  But  ere  long  music  clutched  her  prey. 
The  dazzling  vision  which  carried  you  suddenly  into  the 
thrilling  delights  of  mutual  passion  made  the  solitary  path  on 
which  you  had  started  look  only  the  more  arid  and  desolate. 

"In  the  story  just  narrated  by  your  husband,  as  from  the 
striking  contrast  between  your  person  and  his,  I  can  readily 
divine  the  secret  anguish  of  your  life,  the  painful  mysteries  of 
that  ill-assorted  union  in  which  you  have  taken  the  lot  of 
suffering  upon  yourself  alone.  Marianna,  though  your  con- 


GAMBARA.  397 

duct  is  and  has  been  unfailingly  heroic,  and  though  fortitude 
never  deserts  you  in  the  performance  of  your  cruel  duties, 
perhaps  in  the  silence  of  your  solitary  nights  the  heart  which 
only  now  is  beating  so  violently  in  your  breast  may  from  time 
to  time  have  rebelled. 

"Your  husband's  worthiness  is  your  worst  torture.  Had 
he  been  less  noble,  less  pure,  you  might  have  deserted  him  ; 
but  your  virtues  are  supported  by  his.  It  may  be  that  you 
have  at  times  speculated  which  of  the  two  heroisms  will  first 
give  way. 

"  You  pursue  the  real  grandeur  of  the  task  while  Paolo  is 
chasing  his  chimera.  If  you  had  only  the  love  of  duty  to  sus- 
tain and  guide  you,  perhaps  triumph  might  seem  the  easier; 
to  kill  your  heart  and  carry  your  life  into  the  region  of  ab- 
stractions might  possibly  suffice  you ;  religion  would  absorb 
the  rest ;  you  would  have  lived  for  an  idea,  like  those  saintly 
women  who  extinguish  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  all  the  instincts 
of  their  nature.  But  the  pervading  charm  of  Paolo's  person, 
the  elevation  of  his  soul,  his  rare  and  affecting  proofs  of  ten- 
derness, constantly  drag  you  down  from  that  ideal  world 
where  virtue  tried  to  keep  you ;  they  have  excited  forces 
within  you  which  are  being  incessantly  exhausted  in  contend- 
ing against  the  phantom  of  love.  But  now  the  time  has  come 
in  which  you  must  no  longer  deceive  yourself.  You  never 
suspected  this.  The  faintest  glimmer  of  hope  kept  you  in  the 
pursuit  of  this  sweet  dream. 

"Year  after  year  of  disillusion  has  undermined  your  pa- 
tience ;  an  angel  would  long  ago  have  lost  it.  To-day  the 
phantom  so  long  pursued  is  naught  but  a  shadow  without  sub- 
stance. Madness  so  closely  allied  to  genius  can  never  know 
a  cure  in  this  world.  You  have  at  last  become  aware  of  this 
fact,  you  have  glanced  backward  on  your  vanished  youth, 
lost,  if  not  sacrificed  ;  you  bitterly  perceive  the  blunder  of 
nature  that  gave  you  a  father  only  when  you  sought,  a  husband. 
You  ask  yourself  whether  you  have  not  gone  beyond  the 


398  GAMSARA. 

duties  of  a  wife  in  keeping  yourself  faithful  to  a  man  who 
knows  no  mistress  but  science.  Marian na,  let  your  hand  re- 
main in  mine ;  all  that  I  have  told  you  is  true.  You  have 
looked  around  you — but  now  you  were  in  Paris,  not  in  Italy, 
where  only  men  know  how  to  love " 

"Oh!  let  me  finish  the  tale,"  cried  Marianna;  "it  were 
better  fitting  that  I  say  these  things  myself.  I  will  be  frank ; 
I  feel  that  I  address  my  truest  friend.  Yes,  I  was  in  Paris 
when  all  you  have  so  lucidly  explained  took  place  within  me, 
for  nowhere  had  I  met  the  love  I  had  dreamed  of  from  child- 
hood up. 

"  My  poor  dress,  my  so  poor  abode,  concealed  me  from  the 
notice  of  men  like  yourself.  The  few  young  men  I  met  here, 
whose  position  did  not  allow  of  their  insulting  me,  are  odious 
to  me ;  these  scoff  at  my  husband  as  a  rambling  old  dotard  ; 
some  only  court  him  the  more  easily  to  betray  him ;  all  aim 
at  getting  me  separated  from  him ;  none  of  them  all  can  un- 
derstand the  adoration  I  have  vowed  to  that  soul  which  is  so 
far  away  from  us  only  because  it  is  so  much  nearer  heaven  ; 
nor  the  love  I  feel  for  that  friend,  brother,  whose  handmaid 
I  would  ever  be.  You  alone  have  understood  the  tie  that 
binds  me  to  him.  Tell  me  that  your  interest  in  my  Paolo  is 
sincere,  without  an  object " 

"I  accept  your  praises,"  interrupted  Andrea,  •'' but  do  not 
go  further ;  do  not  compel  me  to  contradict  you.  I  love  you, 
Marianna,  as  we  know  how  to  love  in  that  glorious  country 
where  you  and  I  were  born.  I  love  you  with  all  my  soul, 
with  all  my  strength  ;  but  before  I  tender  you  this  love,  I 
intend  to  make  myself  worthy  of  your  affection. 

"  I  will  make  a  last  effort  to  give  back  to  you  the  man  you 
have  loved  since  childhood,  and  whom,  most  probably,  you 
will  never  cease  to  love.  While  awaiting  success  or  defeat, 
accept,  with  no  trace  of  shame,  the  modest  comforts  which 
I  can  give  you  both.  To-morrow  we  will  look  out  a  suitable 
abode  for  him. 


GAMBARA.  399 

"  Is  your  esteem  sufficiently  great  to  allow  me  to  be  a  sharer 
in  your  guardianship?" 

Marianna,  astounded  by  such  generosity,  held  out  her  hand 
to  the  count ;  he  took  it,  and  departed,  endeavoring  to  evade 
the  civilities  of  Giardini  and  his  wife. 

Next  day  Andrea  was  taken  up  to  the  room  in  which  Gam- 
bara  and  his  wife  lived.  Though  Marianna  fully  recognized 
the  noble  nature  of  her  lover  (for  there  are  natures  which  can 
quickly  read),  she  was  too  good  a  housewife  not  to  show  em- 
barrassment on  receiving  so  great  a  gentleman  in  so  humble 
a  chamber.  But  it  was  exquisitely  clean.  She  had  spent  the 
morning  in  dusting  her  motley  furniture,  the  handiwork  of 
Signor  Giardini,  who  had  devoted  his  moments  of  leisure  in 
constructing  it  from  the  woodwork  of  instruments  which  had 
been  discarded  by  Gambara. 

Never  in  his  life  had  Andrea  seen  anything  so  amazing. 
To  keep  a  sober  countenance  he  was  compelled  to  turn  away 
his  eyes  from  a  bed,  so  grotesquely  manufactured  by  the  in- 
genious cook  out  of  the  case  of  an  old  harpsichord,  to  look  at 
Marianna's  narrow  couch,  of  which  the  single  mattress  was 
covered  with  a  white  lawn  counterpane,  a  circumstance  which 
surcharged  his  mind  with  sad,  but  some  sweet  thoughts. 

He  wished  to  talk  of  his  plans  and  morning's  work  ;  but 
the  enthusiastic  Gambara,  who  believed  that  he  had  at  last 
found  a  willing  auditor,  seized  upon  the  count  and  made  him 
listen  to  an  opera  which  he  had  written  for  the  Parisians. 

"  In  the  first  place,  morisieur,"  said  Gambara.  "  allow  me 
to  explain  the  subject  in  two  words.  Here  in  Paris  people 
who  receive  a  musical  impression  do  not  work  it  out  in  their 
own  minds,  as  religion  teaches  us  to  develop  sacred  texts,  by 
meditation  and  prayer.  It  is  therefore  very  difficult  to  make 
them  understand  that  there  exists  in  nature  an  eternal  theme, 
disturbed  only  by  fluctuations  independent  of  the  Pivine  will, 
as  passions  are  uncontrolled  by  the  will  of  men. 


400  GAMBARA. 

"  It  became  necessary  that  I  should  seek  some  vast  frame- 
work in  which  to  combine  cause  and  effect,  for  my  music  aims 
at  presenting  a  picture  of  the  life  of  nations  taken  at  its  loftiest 
points  of  view.  My  opera,  for  I  myself  wrote  the  libretto  (as 
no  poet  could  have  fittingly  developed  the  subject),  gives  the 
life  of  Mahomet,  a  personage  who  unites  the  magic  of  ancient 
Sabaeanism  and  the  Oriental  poetry  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
resulting  in  one  of  the  grandest  of  human  epics — the  domin- 
ion of  the  Arab. 

"  Mahomet,  without  a  doubt,  borrowed  the  idea  of  despotic 
government  from  the  Jews,  and  the  progressive  movement 
which  created  the  brilliant  empire  of  the  caliphs  from  the 
pastoral  or  Sabaean  religions.  The  prophet's  destiny  was 
stamped  upon  him  at  his  birth — his  father  was  a  Pagan,  his 
mother  a  Jewess.  Ah  !  my  dear  count,  to  be  a  great  musician 
one  must  also  be  very  learned.  Without  education  there  can 
be  no  local  color ;  in  fact,  no  musical  ideas.  The  musician 
who  only  sings  to  sing  is  but  an  artisan,  not  an  artist. 

"  This  magnificent  opera  is  a  continuation  of  the  great  work 
I  had  already  commenced.  My  first  opera  was  called  'The 
Martyrs;'  I  intend  to  write  a  third  one  on  '  Jerusalem  Deliv- 
ered.' You  can  of  course  discern  the  beauty  of  this  triology 
and  the  manifold  motives  it  affords.  The  Martyrs,  Mahomet, 
Jerusalem  !  The  God  of  the  Occident,  the  God  of  the  Orient, 
and  the  struggle  of  their  religionists  about  a  tomb.  But  let 
us  not  speak  of  my  fame  for  ever  gone.  Listen  to  the  argu- 
ment of  my  opera." 

He  paused. 

"  The  first  act,"  he  went  on,  "  shows  Mahomet  as  a  porter 
living  in  the  house  of  Khadijah,  a  rich  widow  with  whom  his 
uncle  has  placed  him.  He  is  in  love  and  ambitious.  Driven 
from  Mecca  he  flies  to  Medina,  and  dates  his  era  from  the 
time  of  his  flight,  the  Hegira. 

"  The  second  act  presents  him  as  a  prophet  founding  a 
religion  militant.  The  third  shows  him  disgusted  with  all 


GAMBARA.  401 

things ;  having  exhausted  life,  he  seeks  to  conceal  his  death 
that  he  may  be  deemed  a  god,  last  effort  of  human  pride. 

"  Now  you  shall  judge  of  my  method  of  expressing  in  sound 
a  great  fact  which  poetry  can  only  imperfectly  render  in 
words." 

Gambara  seated  himself  at  the  piano  with  a  calm  and  col- 
lected air,  and  his  wife  brought  the  voluminous  sheets  of  the 
score,  which,  however,  he  did  not  open. 

"  The  whole  opera,"  said  he,  "  is  founded  on  a  base  as  on  a 
fruitful  soil.  Mahomet  must  therefore  have  a  majestic  bass 
voice,  and  necessarily  his  first  wife  must  have  a  contralto  one. 
Khadijah  was  quite  old — twenty  !  Attention  !  Here  is  the 
overture.  It  begins  andante,  C-minor,  triple  time.  Do  you 
hear  the  sadness  of  the  ambitious  man  whom  love  cannot 
satisfy?  Through  his  plaints,  by  a  modulation  to  E-flat, 
allegro,  common  time,  are  heard  the  cries  of  the  epileptic 
lover,  his  ravings,  mingled  with  certain  warlike  sounds  ;  for 
the  all-powerful  scimitar  of  the  caliphs  begins  to  gleam  before 
his  eyes.  The  charms  of  the  single  wife  give  him  that  idea  of 
the  plurality  of  love  which  so  forcibly  impresses  us  in  '  Don 
Giovanni.'  As  you  listen  to  this  theme  do  you  not  already 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  paradise  of  Mahomet  ? 

"  Now  we  have,  A-flat  major,  six-eight  time,  a  cantabile, 
fit  to  create  emotions  of  delight  in  those  rebellious  to  all  musi- 
cal feeling;  Khadijah  comprehends  Mahomet!  Then  Kha- 
dijah announces  to  the  multitude  the  prophet's  conferences 
with  the  angel  Gabriel — maestoso  sostenuto,  in  F-minor. 

"The  magistrates  and  priests,  power  and  religion,  feeling 
themselves  attacked  by  the  reformer,  as  Christ  and  Socrates 
attacked  the  effete,  expiring  religions  and  powers,  turn  upon 
Mahomet  and  drive  him  forth  from  Mecca — stretto  in  C-major. 
But  now,  pay  heed  !  comes  my  glorious  dominant — G, 
common  time.  Arabia  hears  her  prophet,  the  horsemen 
gather — G-major,  E-flat,  B-flat,  G-minor,  still  common  time. 
The  mass  of  men  gathers  like  an  avalanche.  The  false  prophet 
26 


402  GAMBARA. 

practices  on  one  tribe  the  deceptions  he  is  so  soon  to  impose 
upon  a  world — G-major. 

"  He  promises  univeral  dominion  to  the  Arabs  ;  they  believe 
him  because  he  is  inspired.  The  crescendo  begins — in  the 
dominant  still.  Listen  to  the  fanfare  of  the  trumpets — C- 
major ;  brass  instruments  woven  into  the  harmony,  strongly 
marked,  and  asserting  themselves  as  an  expression  of  the 
first  triumphs  of  victory.  Medina  is  conquered  for  the 
prophet,  the  whole  army  marches  on  Mecca — burst  of  martial 
music — still  in  C-major.  The  whole  power  of  the  orchestra 
is  worked  up  to  a  conflagration  ;  every  instrument  gives  voice  ; 
do  you  hear  the  torrents  of  harmony? 

"  Suddenly  the  tutti  is  interrupted  by  a  graceful  air — minor 
third.  You  hear  the  last  strains  of  devoted  love !  The 
woman  who  upheld  the  great  man  dies,  concealing  her  despair; 
dies,  dies  at  the  triumph  of  the  man  in  whom  love  had  become 
too  mighty  to  be  content  with  one  woman  ;  she  adores  him 
enough  to  sacrifice  herself  to  the  grandeur  that  destroys  her. 
Soul  of  flame ! 

"But  now  behold  !  The  desert  invades  the  world — C-major 
again.  The  orchestra  takes  up  the  score  in  the  terrific  fifth  of 
the  fundamental  bass  which  dies  away — Mahomet  is  satiated  ; 
he  has  tasted  all,  he  has  exhausted  all  !  But  he  craves  to  die 
a  god.  Arabia  adores  him  in  prayer ;  we  fall  back  upon  my 
first  sad  strain  to  which  the  curtain  rose — C-minor. 

"Do  you  not  discern  in  this  music,"  said  Gambara,  ceasing 
to  play  and  turning  toward  the  count,  "  in  this  vivid,  pic- 
turesque music,  abrupt,  jostling,  melancholy,  fantastic,  but 
always  grand,  the  expression  of  an  epileptic  frantic  after  enjoy- 
ment, unable  to  read  or  write,  making  his  very  defects  a 
stepping-stone  to  his  grandeur,  transferring  blunder  and  dis- 
aster into  triumphs?  Do  you  not  obtain  from  this  overture — 
an  epitome  of  the  opera — an  idea  of  his  seductive  power  over 
a  greedy  and  lustful  rare?  " 

The  face  of  the  maestro,  at  first  calm  and  stern,  on  which 


GAMBARA.  403 

Andrea  had  been  trying  to  divine  the  meaning  of  the  ideas 
he  was  uttering  with  an  inspired  voice,  though  the  chaotic 
flood  of  notes  estopped  his  hearer  from  comprehending,  grew 
even  more  animated  until  it  took  on  an  impassioned,  fiery 
glow  which  infected  Marianna  and  the  cook.  Marianna, 
deeply  affected  by  the  passages  in  which  she  read  her  own 
position,  could  not  hide  the  agitation  from  Andrea. 

Gambara  wiped  his  forehead  and  threw  his  glance  with  such 
force  to  the  ceiling  that  he  seemed  to  pierce  it  and  rise  upward 
to  the  skies. 

"You  have  seen  the  vestibule,"  said  he;  "now  we  enter 
the  temple.  The  opera  begins  : 

"Acr  I.  Mahomet,  alone  on  the  stage,  sings  an  air — F-nat- 
ural,  common  time,  interrupted  by  a  chorus  of  camel-drivers, 
who  surround  a  well  at  the  rear  of  the  stage — contrary  time, 
twelve-eight.  What  majestic  grief !  It  touches  the  heart  of 
the  most  frivolous  woman,  piercing  the  soul  if  she  has  no  heart. 
Is  not  this  the  very  expression  of  repressed  genius  ?  " 

To  Andrea's  very  great  amazement  (for  Marianna  was  ac- 
customed to  it)  Gambara  contracted  his  larynx  so  violently 
that  choking  sounds  issued  thence,  something  like  the  at- 
tempted growl  of  a  watch-dog  which  has  lost  its  voice.  A 
light  froth  arose  on  the  composer's  lips  and  caused  Andrea  to 
shudder. 

"  His  wife  appears — A-minor.  Magnificent  duet !  In  this 
number  I  make  it  known  that  Mahomet  has  the  will,  his 
wife  the  brains.  Khadijah  announces  that  she  is  about  under- 
taking a  work  which  will  bereave  her  of  the  love  of  her  young 
husband.  Mahomet  aspires  to  conquer  the  world  :  his  wife 
divines  his  purpose  ;  she  seconds  his  endeavor  by  persuading 
the  people  of  Mecca  that  her  husband's  epileptic  fits  are  due 
to  his  commerce  with  the  angels.  Chorus  of  Mahomet's  first 
disciples,  who  press  forward  to  promise  him  their  help — C- 
sharp  minor,  sotto  voce.  Mahomet  txuent  to  speak  with  the 
angel  Gabriel — recitative  in  F-major.  His  wife  encourages 


404  GAMBARA. 

the  chorus — aria,  accompanied  by  chorus ;  gusts  of  chanting 
voices  sustain  Khadijah's  grand,  majestic  song — A-major. 

"Abdallah,  the  father  of  Ayesha,  the  only  maiden  that 
Mahomet  has  found  to  be  a  virgin,  whose  name  he  thereupon 
changes  to  Abu-Bekr,  the  father  of  the  virgin,  comes  forward 
with  Ayesha  and  sings  against  the  chorus,  taking  up  Khadijah's 
in  contrapuntal  treatment.  Omar,  father  of  Hafsah,  another 
virgin  who  is  to  be  Mahomet's  concubine,  follows  Abu-Bekr's 
example ;  he  and  his  daughter  join  in  and  form  a  quintette. 
The  virgin  Ayesha  is  first  soprano  ;  Hafsah,  mezzo  soprano ; 
Abu-Bekr  is  a  bass  ;  Omar  a  baritone. 

"Mahomet  returns  inspired. 

"  He  sings  his  first  bravura  aria,  the  beginning  of  the  finale 
— E-major  ;  he  promises  the  empire  of  the  world  to  those  who 
believe  in  him.  The  prophet  sees  the  two  maidens,  by  a  soft 
transition — from  B-major  to  G-major ;  he  turns  to  amorous 
tones.  Ali,  Mahomet's  cousin,  and  Kahled,  his  greatest  gen- 
eral, both  tenors,  now  appear  and  announce  the  persecution  ; 
the  magistrates,  the  soldiers,  and  rulers  have  banished  the 
prophet — recitatiite. 

"Mahomet  now  makes  an  invocation  to  the  angel  Gabriel 
in  C.  He  declares  that  the  angel  is  with  him,  and  points  out 
a  pigeon  flying  above  his  head.  The  chorus  of  believers  make 
reply  in  tones  of  devotion — modulating  to  B-major.  The 
soldiers,  magistrates,  and  officials  arrive — tempo  di  marcia,  B- 
major.  Struggle  between  the  two  forces — sirette  in  E-major. 
Mahomet,  in  a  succession  of  diminished  sevenths  in  a  descend- 
ing theme,  yields  to  the  storm  and  takes  to  flight.  The  sav- 
age, sombre  color  of  the  finale  is  raised  somewhat  by  the 
phrases  of  the  three  women,  who  utter  predictions  of  Mahomet's 
triumph  ;  and  these  motifs  will  be  found  further  accentuated 
in  the  third  act,  where  Mahomet  is  found  enjoying  the  de- 
lights of  splendor." 

Tears  arose  in  Gambara's  eyes;  he  controlled  his  emotion 
and  resumed  : 


GAMBARA.  405 

"  ACT  II.  Behold  religion  is  now  established.  Arabs  guard 
the  prophet's  tent,  who  confers  with  God — chorus  in  A-minor. 
Mahomet  appears — prayer  in  F.  What  a  majestic  and  noble 
strain  underlies  this  chant  in  the  bass  voices,  in  which,  I 
believe,  I  have  enlarged  the  limits  of  melody  !  It  seemed 
necessary  to  express  the  marvels  of  that  immense  uprising 
which  created  an  architecture,  a  poetry,  a  music  ;  with  its  own 
manners,  customs,  and  morals. 

"As  you  listen  you  walk  beneath  the  arches  of  the  Genera- 
life  and  thread  the  vaulted  portals  of  the  Alhambra.  The 
fiorituri  of  the  melody  paint  the  exquisite  Moorish  arabesques, 
the  gallant  and  warlike  religion  which  was  presently  to  meet 
in  battle  the  noble  and  valorous  chivalry  of  Christianity.  A 
few  brass  instruments  now  sound  the  first  notes  of  triumph — 
by  a  broken  cadenza.  The  Arabs,  on  their  knees,  worship 
the  prophet — E-flat  major.  Khaled,  Amrou,  and  Ali  enter — 
tempo  di  marcia.  The  armies  of  the  Faithful  have  taken  many 
towns  and  conquered  the  three  Arabias.  Such  a  sonorous 
recitative.  Mahomet  rewards  his  generals  by  giving  them 
maidens. 

"And  here  comes  in,"  said  Gambara,  ruefully,  "one  of 
those  wretched  ballets  which  cut  the  thread  of  our  finest  musi- 
cal tragedies.  But  Mahomet — B-minor — redeems  it  by  his 
transcendent  prophecy,  which  that  poor  Monsieur  de  Voltaire 
describes  in  these  words  : 

"  'Arabia's  day  at  last  has  come.' 

"  The  chorus  of  Arabs  breaks  triumphant — six-eight  time, 
accelerando.  Now  the  tribes  in  multitude  come  on ;  horns 
and  brass  join  in  the  orchestra.  General  rejoicings  ensue,  by 
degrees  all  the  voices  take  part,  and  Mahomet  declares  polyg- 
amy. 

"In  the  midst  of  all  this  triumph  the  woman  who  has  done 
so  much  for  Mahomet  pours  forth  a  magnificent  aria — B-major. 
'And  I,'  sings  she,  'am  I  no  longer  loved?'  'We  must 
part/  he  responds.  'Thou  art  a  woman,  I  am  a  prophet  j 


406  GAMBARA. 

slaves  I  may  have,  equals  never.'  Hearken  to  this  duet — 
G-sharp  minor.  What  anguish !  The  woman  realizes  the 
grandeur  to  which  she  has  been  the  means  of  elevating  Ma- 
homet ;  she  loves  him  enough  to  sacrifice  herself  to  his  glory, 
she  adores  him  as  a  god,  she  judges  not,  she  murmurs  not. 
Poor  woman  !  his  first  dupe,  his  first  victim  !  What  a  subject 
for  the  finale — B-major. 

"  Behold  the  sombre  grief  standing  out  against  the  acclama- 
tions of  the  chorus,  mingling  with  the  tones  of  Mahomet  as 
he  flings  his  wife  aside  as  a  used-out  instrument,  and  yet 
causes  us  to  understand  that  he  can  never  forget  her.  What 
fireworks  of  triumph,  what  red  fire  of  joyous,  rippling  songs 
gush  from  the  voices  of  Ayesha  and  Hafsa  {premiere  and  mezzo 
soprano),  further  sustained  by  Ali  and  his  wife,  by  Omar  and 
Abu-Bekr.  Weep,  rejoice  !  Triumph  and  tears  !  Of  such  is 
life." 

Marianna  could  not  restrain  her  sobs  ;  Andrea  was  so  deeply 
moved  that  his  eyes  grew  moist.  The  Neapolitan  cook, 
shaken  by  the  magnetic  current  of  ideas  generated  by  the 
spasmodic  accents  of  Gambara's  voice,  was  overcome  by  emo- 
tion like  the  rest. 

The  composer  turned  around  to  the  group ;  he  smiled. 

"  You  understand  me  at  last !  "  cried  he. 

No  conqueror  haled  in  triumph  to  the  Capitol,  amid  the 
purple  radiance  of  his  glory  and  the  acclamations  of  a  nation, 
ever  wore  such  an  expression  when  the  crown  was  placed  upon 
his  head  as  Gambara  did  at  this  time.  His  face  had  the  halo 
of  a  martyred  saint.  None  undeceived  him.  A  dreadful 
smile  flickered  on  Marianna's  lips.  The  count  was  appalled 
by  the  artless,  blind  insanity. 

"  ACT  III.,"  said  the  rapt  musician,  again  seating  himself  at 
the  piano : 

"  Solo,  andantino,  Mahomet  unhappy  though  in  his  seraglio 
surrounded  by  women.  Quartette  of  houris — A-major.  What 
pomp  of  harmony,  what  trills  as  those  of  a  happy  nightingale] 


GAMBARA.  407 

It  modulates  into  F-sharp  minor.  The  theme  is  given  on  the 
dominant  (E)  and  is  then  repeated  in  A-major.  Here  all  de- 
lights are  grouped  visibly  to  the  senses  and  produce  a  grand 
contrast  to  the  sombre  finale  of  the  first  act. 

"After  the  dances  Mahomet  arises  and  sings  a  grand 
bravura — F-minor.  He  regrets  the  singleness  and  devotion 
of  his  first  wife,  but  acknowledges  himself  as  wedded  to  po- 
lygamy. Never  did  musician  have  so  grand  a  subject.  The 
orchestra  and  women's  chorus  express  the  joys  of  the  houri ; 
meanwhile  Mahomet  reverts  to  the  sad  strain  of  the  beginning. 

"Where  is  Beethoven?"  cried  Gambara;  "where,  then, 
is  that  soul  who  only  could  understand  the  majestic  over- 
turning of  my  opera  upon  itself.  See  how  completely  all 
depends  upon  the  bass  ;  thus  did  Beethoven  construct  his 
symphony  in  C. 

"  But  his  heroic  movement  is  purely  instrumental,  while 
mine  is  sustained  by  a  sextette  of  glorious  human  voices,  and 
a  chorus  of  believers  who  are  on  guard  at  the  gate  of  the 
sacred  dwelling.  I  have  here  collected  all  the  treasures  of 
melody  and  harmony,  vocal  and  orchestral.  Listen  to  the 
utterance  of  all  human  life,  rich  or  poor :  BATTLE,  TRIUMPH, 
SATIETY. 

"  Ali  enters;  everywhere  the  Koran  is  triumphant — duet, 
D-minor.  Mahomet  places  himself  in  the  hands  of  his  two 
fathers-in-law ;  he  is  weary  of  all ;  he  will  abdicate  and  die  in 
secret  after  he  has  consolidated  his  religion.  Magnificent 
sextette — B-flat  major  !  He  bids  all  farewell — solo  in  F- 
natural.  His  two  fathers-in-law,  appointed  his  vicars  or 
caliphs,  summon  the  people.  A  grand  triumphal  march. 
Prayer  of  the  Arabs  kneeling  before  the  sacred  dwelling,  the 
Kasba,  whence  a  pigeon  takes  its  flight — same  key.  This  prayer, 
sung  by  sixty  voices  and  led  by  women — B-flat — crowns  my 
stupendous  work,  which  so  well  expresses  the  life  of  men  and 
nations.  Here  you  have  heard  every  emotion,  human  or 
divine." 


408  GAMBARA. 

Andrea  was  overcome  with  sheer  amazement.  He  was  much 
affected  by  this  good  man's  mania,  he  colored,  and  stole  a 
glance  at  Marianna ;  while  she  became  pallid  and  turned  her 
eyes  downward,  silently  weeping.  Had  he  not  been  shocked 
by  the  irony  which  the  man  showed  as  he  presented  the  feel- 
ings of  Mahomet's  wife  and  yet  not  perceiving  the  same 
emotions  in  Marianna,  the  madness  of  the  husband  was 
eclipsed  by  the  craziness  of  the  composer.  There  was  not  the 
least  resemblance  to  musical  or  poetical  ideas  in  the  loud 
blathering  which  oppressed  his  ears.  All  the  principles  of 
harmony,  the  first  rules  of  composition,  were  quite  ignored  in 
this  formless  creation.  Instead  of  a  theme  scientifically  worked 
out  such  as  had  been  described  by  Gambara,  his  fingers  had 
brought  out  a  succession  of  fifths,  sevenths,  octaves,  major 
thirds,  progressions  of  fourths,  minus  the  sixths  in  the  bass — 
a  jumble  of  discordant  sound,  randomly  made,  as  though  in- 
tended to  destroy  the  ear  of  the  least  sensitive  of  listeners.  It 
is  impossible  to  attempt  a  description  of  this  grotesque  execu- 
tion ;  new  words  must  needs  be  coined  to  portray  this  im- 
possible music. 

During  its  execution  he  had  closed  his  eyes  in  ecstasy;  had 
smiled  upon  his  piano  ;  had  frowned  at  it ;  put  out  his  tongue 
after  the  manner  of  an  inspired  performer.  He  had  been,  in 
fact,  intoxicated  by  the  poetry  of  the  thoughts  that  peopled 
his  brain — he  had  vainly  endeavored  the  utterance  of  them. 
The  strange  discords  had  evidently  been  to  him  celestial  har- 
monies. Beyond  any  doubt  the  vision  of  his  inspired  blue 
eyes  in  rapt  enjoyment  of  another  world  ;  the  rosy  glow  of 
his  cheeks  ;  above  all,  the  heavenly  serenity  stamped  upon  his 
lofty  features,  would  have  led  any  deaf  man  to  believe  that  he 
was  present  at  the  improvisation  of  some  maestro.  The  illu- 
sion would  have  been  the  more  perfect  because  the  mechanical 
execution  of  this  crazy  music  required  immense  skill  in  finger- 
ing. Gambara  must  have  worked  at  it  for  years. 

His  hands  were  not  alone  employed  ;  his  feet  were  constant 


GAMBARA.  4U'J 

in  the  pedaling;  perspiration  streamed  down  his  face  as  he 
labored  to  fully  emphasize  a  crescendo  by  all  the  feeble  means 
which  a  decrepit  piano  afforded.  He  stamped,  snorted,  puffed, 
and  shouted  ;  his  fingers  darted  hither  and  thither  like  the 
forked  fangs  of  a  snake  ;  finally,  as  the  piano  uttered  its  last 
growl,  he  flung  himself  backward  and  let  his  head  rest  on  the 
back  of  the  chair. 

"Per  Bacco!  I  am  stunned,  dizzy,"  cried  Andrea,  escap- 
ing from  the  chamber.  "A  child  dancing  on  the  keyboard 
would  make  better  music." 

"Certainly,"  said  Giardini.  "All  that  chance  could  do 
couldn't  manage  to  avoid  hitting  two  notes  in  concord  than 
that  devil  of  a  fellow  has  done  during  the  hour  now  gone." 

"  How  comes  it  that  the  regular  features  of  Marianna's 
beauty  remain  ?"  muttered  the  count  to  himself.  "  Such  an 
incessant  hearing  of  so  hideous  melody  must  change  anything. 
She  will  grow  ugly." 

"  Signer  confe,  she  must  be  saved  from  that,"  cried  Giardini. 

"Yes,"  said  Andrea,  "I  have  been  thinking  of  that.  But 
to  be  sure  that  my  plans  are  not  built  upon  the  sands,  I  must 
test  my  thoughts  by  yet  another  experiment.  To-morrow  I 
will  return  and  examine  the  instruments  he  has  invented  ;  after 
dinner  we  will  have  a  little  supper  (medianoche}.  I  provide 
the  wine  and  a  few  fancy  dishes." 

The  cook  bowed  low. 

The  next  day  was  spent  by  the  count  in  arranging  the  suite 
of  rooms  in  which  he  intended  domiciling  the  poor  household. 

He  returned  in  the  evening  to  the  Rue  Froidmanteau  and 
found  the  wine  and  so  forth  set  out  by  Marianna  and  Giar- 
dini, displaying  some  little  taste.  Gambara  with  much  pride 
showed  him  some  little  drums,  on  which  lay  grains  of  gun- 
powder, by  which  means  he  made  observations  on  the  pitch 
and  temperament  of  the  sounds  emitted  by  his  instruments. 

"  Do  you  see,"  said  he,  "  by  what  simple  means  I  am  able 
to  demonstrate  a  great  proposition?  Acoustics  by  this  means 


410  GAMBARA. 

reveal  actions  analogous  to  sound  on  every  object  which  that 
sound  affects.  All  harmonies  start  from  a  common  centre  and 
always  retain  an  intimate  relation  to  each  other ;  rather,  har- 
mony, like  light,  is  decomposed  by  our  art  as  a  ray  is  by  a 
prism." 

Here  Gambara  proceeded  to  show  Andrea  the  instruments 
constructed  according  to  his  principles,  and  he  explained  the 
changes  he  had  made  in  their  shape  and  material.  Finally 
he  announced,  with  gravity,  that,  to  properly  conclude  this 
preliminary  evening,  which  had  thus  far  only  gratified  the 
curiosity  of  the  eye,  he  would  allow  all  then  present  to  hear 
an  instrument  which  was  capable  of  taking  the  place  of  an 
entire  orchestra ;  he  called  this  the  panharmonicon. 

"If  it  is  the  arrangement  in  that  case  which  causes  a  grum- 
bling of  all  the  neighbors,"  said  Giardini,  "when  you  are 
working  on  it,  you  won't  do  much  playing  thereon,  for  the 
police  will  interfere.  Bear  that  in  mind." 

"If  that  unhappy  idiot  remains  in  the  room,"  whispered 
Gambara  in  Andrea's  ear,  "  it  will  be  impossible  that  I  should 
play." 

The  count  made  a  pretext  to  get  rid  of  the  cook  by  prom- 
ising him  a  present  if  he  would  stay  downstairs  and  prevent 
the  police  and  neighbors  from  interfering.  Giardini,  who  had 
not  stinted  his  own  allowance  of  wine  while  pouring  out  for 
the  others,  willingly  complied. 

The  composer,  while  not  intoxicated,  was  in  that  elevated 
condition  when  every  function  of  the  brain  is  overexcited ; 
when  the  opaque  walls  become  transparent,  the  garret  roofless, 
and  the  soul  takes  flight  into  the  world  of  spirits. 

Marianna,  not  without  difficulty,  uncovered  an  instrument 
about  the  size  of  a  grand  piano ;  but  with  an  upper  manual 
a-nd  a  great  double  case,  not  altogether  unlike  the  boxing  of 
an  organ.  This  curious  machine  was  also  provided  with  stops 
for  various  instruments,  and  the  bent  elbows  of  a  number  of 
tubes  or  pipes. 


GAMBARA.  411 

"Will  you  play  for  me  the  prayer  which  you  say  is  so  fine, 
the  finale  of  your  opera?"  asked  the  count. 

To  Andrea's  great  astonishment  and  Marianna's  surprise, 
Gambara  commenced  with  a  few  chords  in  perfect  harmony  that 
proclaimed  him  a  master  ;  their  astonishment  was  succeeded  by 
admiration  and  in  turn  by  complete  rapture ;  they  entirely 
lost  sight  of  the  place  and  performer.  The  effects  01'  a  full 
orchestra  would  have  been  less  fine  than  the  reedy  tone  of  the 
wind  instruments,  which  swelled  like  an  organ  and  formed  a 
marvelous  blend  with  the  string  harmonies.  But  the  unfin- 
ished state  of  this  machine  prevented  the  full  development  of 
the  composer's  ideas,  which  seemed  the  greater  for  the  sense 
of  incompleteness.  It  may  be  remarked  that  certain  perfec- 
tions in  works  of  art  seem  rather  to  detract  from  than  improve 
the  unfinished  sketch ;  for  one  may  then  add  the  deficiency 
by  his  own  thoughts. 

The  purest  and  sweetest  music  that  Andrea  had  ever  heard 
rose  from  under  the  impact  of  Gambara's  fingers  like  incense 
from  an  altar.  The  composer's  voice  became  again  youthful ; 
so  far  from  marring  the  fine  melody,  it  expounded,  supported, 
and  directed  it ;  as  the  quavering  voice  of  a  reader  like 
Andrieux  gives  scope  to  the  meaning  of  some  great  scene  by 
Corneille  or  Racine  by  lending  it  a  personal  and  sympathetic 
emotion. 

This  angelic  music  revealed  the  treasures  that  lay  hidden  in 
the  grand  opera  which  could  never  be  understood  so  long  as 
this  man  persisted  in  the  endeavor  to  explain  it  in  his  normal 
state  of  dementia. 

Marianna  and  Andrea,  equally  divided  between  delight  of 
the  music  and  surprise  at  the  strange  instrument  with  its 
hundred-voiced  stops,  in  which  a  stranger  might  think  a  choir 
of  young  girls  was  hidden,  so  closely  did  some  of  the  tones 
resemble  the  human  voice,  dared  not  exchange  ideas  either 
by  word  or  look.  Marianna's  countenance  was  radiant  with 
a  glow  of  hope,  which  revivified  the  beauty  ol"  her  youth. 


412  GAMBARA. 

This  new  birth  of  beauty,  in  connection  with  the  luminosity 
of  her  husband's  genius,  cast  a  shadowy  tinge  of  sadness  over 
the  pleasure  that  this  mysterious  hour  had  given  the  count. 

"You  are  our  good  spirit !  "  Marianna  whispered  to  him. 
"I  am  tempted  to  think  that  you  inspire  him,  for  I,  who  am 
never  away  from  his  side,  have  never  yet  heard  anything  like 
this." 

"Khadijah's  farewell,"  said  Gambara;  who  now  sang  the 
cavatina  which  he  had  the  previous  evening  described  as  being 
sublime,  and  which  now  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  the 
lovers,  so  perfectly  did  it  express  the  noblest  sentiments  of 
devoted  love. 

"  Who  can  have  inspired  you  with  such  music?"  cried  the 
count. 

"The  spirit,"  answered  Gambara.  "When  he  appears, 
flame  is  all  around  me.  I  see  the  melodies  face  to  face  ;  fresh, 
beautiful,  in  floral  coloring.  They  sparkle,  they  echo — I 
listen.  But  an  infinity  of  time  is  necessary  to  reproduce 
them." 

"Play  on,"  said  Marianna. 

Gambara,  who  seemed  not  to  feel  fatigue,  played  without 
effort  or  untowardness.  He  executed  the  overture  with  such 
facility  and  skill,  he  showed  such  new  and  undiscovered 
musical  effects,  that  the  count  was  dazzled  by  what  he  heard ; 
he  began  to  believe  in  some  magic  like  that  controlled  by 
Liszt  and  Paganini — a  genius  of  execution  which  can  change 
all  musical  conditions  and  create  of  it  a  poetry  transcendent 
of  all  conditions  of  music. 

"Well,  excellenza,  and  can  you  cure  him?"  asked  Giar- 
dini,  when  at  length  Andrea  went  down. 

"  I  shall  soon  be  able  to  say,"  replied  the  count.  "The 
man's  intellect  has  two  windows  :  one  is  turned  toward  the 
earth  and  is  closed  ;  the  other  looks  in  upon  heaven.  The 
first  is  music,  the  second  poetry.  Until  now  he  would  stand 
stubbornly  before  the  closed  window ;  we  must  get  him  to  the 


GAMBARA.  413 

other.  It  was  you,  Giardini,  that  first  put  me  on  the  track  of 
this  truth,  by  letting  me  know  that  his  mind  was  clearer  after 
a  few  glasses  of  wine." 

"Yes,"  cried  the  cook,  "and  lean  guess  your  scheme, 
excellenza." 

"  If  it  is  not  too  late  to  make  poetry  ring  in  his  ears  to  the 
sound  of  a  glorious  harmony,  we  must  put  him  into  a  condi- 
tion to  hear  and  judge  of  it.  Now  it  seems  to  me  that  only 
intoxication  can  bring  this  about.  Will  you  assist  me  in  this? 
You  won't  be  any  the  worse  for  it,  eh?" 

"  What  is  your  excellency  getting  at?  " 

Andrea  made  no  answer,  but  went  away  laughing  at  the  per- 
spicacity of  the  crazy  mind  of  the  Neapolitan. 

On  the  following  day  Marcosini  came  to  fetch  away  Mari- 
anna  and  show  her  the  lodging  he  had  secured.  She  had 
used  the  morning  in  fixing  up  a  simple  but  decent  dress,  into 
which  she  had  put  the  whole  of  her  little  savings.  The 
change  would  have  been  the  disillusion  of  a  mere  dangler ; 
but  the  fancy  of  the  count  had  now  become  a  settled  pas- 
sion. 

Marianna,  stripped  of  her  picturesque  poverty,  was  trans- 
formed outwardly  into  a  mere  bourgeoise,  and  gave  Andrea 
visions  of  a  wedded  life ;  he  gave  her  his  hand  in  assisting 
her  into  the  hackney-coach,  and  acquainted  her  with  his  ideas. 
She  smiled  and  approved  ;  she  was  happy  at  finding  her  ad- 
mirer more  lofty,  more  generous,  more  disinterested  than  she 
had  dared  to  hope.  He  soon  reached  the  new  dwelling,  where 
Andrea  had  endeavored  to  keep  himself  ever  in  her  thoughts 
by  adding  a  few  of  those  little  elegancies  which  beguile  the 
most  virtuous  of  women. 

"I  will  never  mention  my  love  to  you  until  we  despair  of 
Paolo's  sanity,"  he  said  to  her,  as  they  returned  to  the  Rue 
Froidmanteau.  "  You  shall  be  witness  to  the  sincerity  of  my 
efforts.  If  these  prove  successful,  I  may  be  unable  to  keep  up 
my  part  as  only  your  friend.  If  this  happens  I  shall  flee  you, 


414  GAMBARA. 

Marianna.  I  have  firmness  enough,  I  think,  to  work  for  your 
happiness,  though  I  may  not  have  enough  to  look  upon  it." 

"Do  not  say  such  things,"  said  Marianna,  with  difficulty 
keeping  back  her  tears.  "Has  not  generosity  its  dangers, 
also  ?  But  are  you  going  so  soon  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Andrea,  "seek  your  happiness  without  my 
drawback. ' ' 

If  Giardini  is  to  be  believed,  the  excellent  change  of  air 
and  living  was  favorable  to  both  husband  and  wife.  Every 
evening  after  his  wine,  Gambara  appeared  less  absent-minded, 
talked  more,  and  was  more  sedate  ;  he  even  proposed  to  read 
the  papers.  Andrea  quaked  in  his  shoes  at  each  manifestation 
of  his  success  ;  but,  though  his  distress  made  him  aware  of  the 
strength  of  his  passion,  this  did  not  cause  him  to  relax  his 
virtuous  resolution.  He  now  came  every  evening  to  learn  the 
progress  of  this  singular  cure.  On  one  occasion  the  state  of 
the  patient  gave  him  satisfaction,  but  his  pleasure  was  dazed 
by  Marianna's  beauty,  for  her  life  being  rendered  less  onerous 
had  restored  her  brilliant  loveliness. 

He  joined  each  evening  in  the  conversations,  grave  or  gay, 
in  which  he  argued  coolly  and  dispassionately  against  Gam- 
bara's  singular  theories.  He  used  the  remarkable  lucidity  of 
the  latter's  mind,  on  every  point  that  did  not  touch  upon  his 
malady,  to  make  him  clearly  perceive  and  acknowledge  prin- 
ciples in  other  branches  of  art  and  which  he  afterward  demon- 
strated were  equally  applicable  to  music. 

All  went  well  so  long  as  the  composer's  brain  was  under  the 
influence  of  the  fumes  of  wine ;  but  just  as  soon  as  he  became 
perfectly  sober  his  reason  was  dethroned — he  was  again  the 
maniac.  And  yet,  in  the  main,  Paolo  was  more  easily  aroused 
by  impressions  from  the  outer  world  ;  his  mind  even  began  to 
employ  itself  on  a  greater  diversity  of  subjects. 

Andrea,  who  took  all  an  artist's  interest  in  his  semi-medical 
treatment,  thought  at  length  that  it  was  about  time  to  try 


GAMBARA.  415 

a  master-stroke.  He  resolved  to  give  a  dinner  at  his  own 
house,  to  which  he  intended  inviting  Giardini  for  the  purpose, 
as  he  told  himself,  of  not  separating  the  sublime  and  the 
ridiculous.  He  selected  the  day  that  "  Robert  le  Diable,"  an 
opera  he  had  already  heard  in  rehearsal,  was  for  the  first  time 
given  in  public. 

After  the  second  course  Gambara  was  already  half-seas  over, 
he  was  laughing  at  himself  with  a  good  grace,  while  Giardini 
was  admitting  that  his  own  culinary  innovations  were  of  the 
devil. 

Andrea  had  neglected  no  means  to  bring  about  this  twofold 
miracle.  Flagons  of  Orvieto  and  Montefiascone,  expensive 
wines  which  are  easily  spoiled  if  carelessly  carried  ;  liqueurs 
of  Lachrymae  Christi,  and  Giro,  and  other  heady  liqueurs  of 
la  cara  patria  or  the  beloved  country,  soon  caused  the  double 
intoxication,  in  these  excitable  minds,  of  grape  and  reminis- 
cence. At  dessert  the  musician  and  the  cook  mutually  abjured 
every  heresy ;  one  hummed  a  cavatina  from  Rossini,  the  other 
piled  confectionery  on  his  plate  and  washed  them  down  with 
maraschino  from  Zara,  to  the  honor  of  the  cuisine  Fran$aise. 

The  count  took  advantage  of  Gambara's  happy  frame  of 
mind  to  carry  him  off  to  the  opera,  whither  he  allowed  him- 
self to  be  led  like  a  lamb. 

With  the  first  notes  of  the  introduction  Gambara's  inebriety 
vanished,  and  gave  place  for  the  feverish  excitement  which  at 
times  brought  his  judgment  and  imagination  into  harmony  ; 
the  habitual  discord  of  which  was  the  undoubted  source  of  his 
insanity.  The  dominant  idea  of  that  great  musical  drama 
appeared  to  him  in  all  its  radiant  simplicity,  like  a  flash  of 
lightning  breaking  through  the  clouds  of  darkness  in  which 
he  lived.  To  his  unsealed  eyes  the  music  seemed  to  sweep 
the  immense  horizons  of  world  in  which  he  found  himself  for 
the  first  time,  though  he  recognized  it  as  what  he  had  seen  in 
his  dreams. 

He  fancied  himself  transported  to  those  slopes  of  his  own 


416  GAMBARA. 

dear  native  country  where  la  bella  Italia  commences,  and 
which  Napoleon  so  appropriately  termed  the  "  glacis  of  the 
Alps."  His  memory  took  him  back  to  the  day  when  his 
young,  vigorous  brain  was  not  yet  troubled  by  the  fervid 
imagination  ;  he  listened  in  reverent  awe,  unwilling  to  miss  a 
word.  The  count  respected  the  travail  of  his  soul.  Till  after 
twelve  o'clock  he  sat  so  motionless  that  the  opera-house  audi- 
ence might  have  taken  him  for  a  drunken  man — which  he 
was.  On  his  way  home  the  count  began  to  attack  Meyerbeer's 
masterpiece,  trying  to  arouse  Gambara,  who  was  now  plunged 
in  the  half-torpid  state  of  drunkenness. 

"  What  is  there  in  that  incoherent  score  that  it  makes  a 
somnambulist  of  you?"  said  Andrea,  when  they  arrived  at 
his  house.  "The  story  of  'Robert  le  Diable '  is  not  alto- 
gether without  interest,  I'll  admit.  Holtei  has  very  happily 
worked  out  with  much  skill  a  well-written  drama,  full  of 
strong  and  moving  situations,  but  the  French  librettists  have 
managed  to  make  it  the  most  absurd  bundle  of  nonsense.  No 
libretto  of  even  Vesari  or  Schikaneder  has  ever  equaled  in 
absurdity  the  words  of  'Robert  le  Diable;'  it  becomes  a 
dramatic  nightmare,  which  oppresses  the  hearer  without  arous- 
ing any  deep  emotion. 

"  Meyerbeer's  devil  plays  too  prominent  a  part.  Bertram 
and  Alice  represent  the  contest  between  right  and  wrong,  the 
good  and  evil  spirit.  That  antagonism  offers  a  splendid  op- 
portunity to  the  composer.  The  sweetest  melodies,  placed 
side  by  side  with  harsh  and  crude  airs,  is  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  libretto  ;  but,  unfortunately,  in  the  score  of  the 
German  composer  the  devils  sing  better  than  the  saints. 

"  The  heavenly  inspirations  give  the  lie  to  their  origin  ; 
when  the  composer  leaves  the  infernal  lay  for  a  moment,  he 
returns  as  speedily  as  may  be,  worn  out  with  the  effort  of 
trying  to  be  rid  of  them.  Melody,  the  golden  thread  that 
should  never  be  broken  in  so  vast  a  scheme,  is  often  strained 
to  the  vanishing  point  in  Meyerbeer's  work.  Sentiment  is 


GAMBARA.  417 

absolutely  lacking  ;  the  heart  has  no  part  in  it ;  we  find  few 
of  those  delightful  inventions,  those  artless  themes  which  touch 
our  sympathies  and  leave  a  tender  impression  on  the  soul. 

"  Harmony  reigns  supreme,  instead  of  being  the  ground- 
work from  whence  should  issue  the  melodious  groups  of  the 
musical  picture.  Those  discordant  notes,  far  from  moving 
the  hearer,  only  excite  in  him  a  sentiment  similar  to  the  one 
he  would  experience  in  seeing  a  tight-rope  walker  hanging,  as 
it  were,  midway  between  life  and  death.  The  soothing  arias 
never  come  at  the  right  moment  to  quieten  this  nervous  agita- 
tion. One  might  well  believe  that  the  composer  had  no  other 
object  in  view  than  to  produce  a  bizarre  effect,  not  troubling 
himself  about  musical  truth  or  unity ;  or  about  the  capability 
of  the  human  voice,  which  is  overwhelmed  in  this  flood  of 
instrumental  hurly-burly." 

"  Hush,  my  friend  !  "  said  Gambara,  "  I  am  still  under  the 
influence  of  that  glorious  chorus  of  hell,  made  still  more  terrible 
by  those  long  trumpets — a  new  instrumentation.  The  broken 
cadenzas  which  add  such  vigor  to  Robert's  scene,  the  cavatina 
in  the  fourth  act,  \hzfinalc  to  the  first,  still  hold  me  in  the 
clutch  of  some  superhuman  power.  No,  even  Gluck's  com- 
positions never  produced  so  powerful  an  effect  ;  I  am  amazed 
at  such  skill." 

" Signor  Maestro,'"  said  Andrea  smiling,  "permit  me  to 
contradict  you.  Before  Gluck  wrote  he  pondered  long  ;  he 
calculated  the  chances  and  adopted  plans  which  might  after- 
ward be  modified  under  his  inspirations  in  their  details,  but  he 
never  allowed  himself  to  stray  from  the  marked-out  path. 
Therein  lies  his  power  of  emphasis ;  that  elocution  of  music 
which  has  life  and  truth  in  every  beat. 

"  I  agree  with  you  that  the  science  of  Meyerbeer's  opera  is 
very  great ;  but  science  becomes  a  defect  when  isolated  from 
inspiration  ;  I  think  I  can  see  in  that  opera  the  painful  work 
of  a  cultivated  craftsman,  who  in  his  music  has  interlarded 
gems  from  many  forgotten  sources,  or  from  damned  operas ; 
27 


418  GAMBARA. 

these  he  has  extended,  remodeled,  or  concentrated.  But  he 
has  fallen  into  the  usual  error  of  the  plagiarist,  an  abuse  of 
good  things.  This  clever  gleaner  in  the  harvest-fields  of 
music  is  prodigal  in  discords,  which,  when  too  frequently 
introduced,  end  by  annoying  the  ear;  it  becomes  habituated 
to  startling  effects,  such  as  a  composer  should  he  chary  in 
giving,  so  that  he  may  obtain  the  full  benefit  when  the  situa- 
tion demands  it. 

"  This  inharmonic  phrasing  is  repeated  to  satiety,  and  the 
abuse  of  the  plagal  cadence*  detracts  from  the  religious 
solemnity  of  the  work. 

"Of  course  I  am  well  aware  that  every  composer  has  his 
particular  methods  to  which  he  will  return  again  and  again  in 
spite  of  himself;  but  he  should  watch  and  guard  himself 
against  that  blunder.  A  picture  that  had  none  but  blues  and 
reds  in  it  would  be  unfaithful  to  nature,  beside  fatiguing  to 
the  eye.  Thus  the  constantly  recurring  rhythm  of  the  score 
of  '  Robert  le  Diable  '  gives  monotony  to  the  whole.  As  to  the 
effect  of  the  long  trumpets,  of  which  you  speak,  it  has  long 
been  known  in  Germany,  and  what  Meyerbeer  gives  us  for 
novelty  was  constantly  utilized  by  Mozart,  who  makes  his 
chorus  of  devils  in  '  Don  Giovanni'  sing  in  that  manner." 

By  these  contradictions  and  renewed  libations  Andrea 
strove  to  bring  Gambara  back  to  his  proper  musical  senses ; 
he  endeavored  to  show  him  that  his  so-called  mission  to  the 
world  was  not  to  regenerate  an  art  beyond  his  powers,  but  to 
seek  expression  for  his  ideas  under  another  form,  by  poetry,  in 
fact. 

"  You,  my  dear  count,  do  not  understand  the  least  thing 
about  that  stupendous  musical  drama,"  said  Gambara  airily. 

He  stood  in  front  of  Andrea's  piano,  struck  the  keys, 
listened  to  the  tone,  then  seated  himself,  meditating  for  a  few 
moments  as  if  to  collect  his  ideas. 

*  The  chord  of  the  sub-dominant  followed  by  th.it  of  the  dominant.— 
TRANS. 


GAMBARA.  419 

"In  the  first  place  you  must  know,"  said  he,  "that  a 
trained  ear  like  mine  perceived  at  once  that  labor  of  setting 
of  which  you  speak.  Yes,  this  music  has  been  lovingly 
selected  from  the  store  of  a  rich  and  fertile  imagination  into 
which  science  has  squeezed  ideas  which  are  to  bring  out  the 
very  essence  of  music. 

"  I  will  illustrate  this." 

He  rose  to  move  the  wax-candles  into  the  adjoining  room, 
and,  before  returning  to  his  seat,  he  drank  a  large  glass  of 
Giro,  a  wine  of  Sardinia,  as  full  of  fire  as  any  old  Tokay  has 
ever  been. 

"It  is  this,"  said  Gambara,  "this  music  was  not  written 
for  skeptics  nor  for  those  who  know  not  love.  If  you  have 
never  in  your  life  experienced  the  vehement  assaults  of  an  evil 
spirit,  who  ever  moves  the  object  at  which  you  are  about  to 
take  aim,  who  brings  to  a  painful  end  your  liveliest  hopes — 
in  one  word,  if  you  have  never  felt  the  devil's  tail  whisk- 
ing about  the  world — the  opera  of  '  Robert  le  Diable '  must 
be  to  you  what  the  Apocalypse  is  to  those  who  think  that  all 
ends  when  they  do.  But  if,  persecuted  and  wretched,  you 
understand  that  spirit  of  evil,  that  so  great  ape  which  hourly 
is  engaged  in  destroying  the  work  of  God  ;  if  you  imagine 
him  as  not  having  loved,  but  of  ravishing  an  almost  divine 
woman,  and  gaining  from  that  deed  the  joys  of  paternity ; 
as  so  loving  his  son  that  he  would  rather  have  him  miserable 
to  all  eternity  that  he  might  be  with  him,  than  to  think  of 
his  being  in  eternal  happiness  with  God ;  if,  again,  you 
can  imagine  the  soul  of  the  mother  hovering  around  her  son 
to  draw  him  away  from  the  atrocious  temptations  offered  by 
his  father,  you,  even  then,  will  have  but  a  faint  idea  of  that 
stupendous  poem,  in  which  little  is  wanting  for  it  to  become 
the  rival  of  Mozart's  '  Don  Giovanni.' 

"  '  Don  Giovanni'  is,  I  admit,  the  superior  by  the  perfec- 
tion of  its  form.  '  Robert  le  Diable  '  represents  ideas  ;  '  Don 
Giovanni'  arouses  sensations.  'Don  Giovanni'  is  still  the 


420  .  GAMBARA. 

only  musical  work  in  which  harmony  and  melody  are  exactly 
balanced.  In  this  lies  its  superiority  to  '  Robert  le  Diable,' 
for  '  Robert '  is  the  richer  work. 

"  But  to  what  good  are  these  comparisons,  since  both  works 
are  beautiful  in  their  own  way?  To  me,  subject  as  I  have 
been  to  the  oft-repeated  assaults  of  the  demon,  '  Robert ' 
speaks  more  powerfully  than  to  you ;  I  find  it  at  once  vast  and 
concentrated. 

"  Thanks  to  you,  I  have  been  transported  to  the  land  of 
dreams,  where  our  senses  expand,  where  the  universe  unfolds 
in  gigantic  scale  in  comparison  with  man." 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"I  am  still  quivering,"  continued  the  unlucky  artist,  "at 
the  sound  of  those  four  measures  of  the  cymbals,  which  shook 
my  very  being  when  they  open  that  short,  abrupt  intro- 
duction where  the  trombone  solo,  the  flutes,  oboes,  and 
the  clarionet  cast  a  fantastic  color  over  the  soul.  The  andante 
in  C-minor  is  a  foretaste  of  the  invocation  of  spirits  in  the 
abbey ;  it  gives  grandeur  to  the  scene  by  its  announcement  of 
a  purely  spiritual  struggle.  I  shuddered  !  " 

Gambara  struck  the  keys  with  a  firm  hand  and  developed 
Meyerbeer's  theme  in  a  masterly  fantasia,  a  kind  of  explosion 
after  the  manner  of  Liszt.  The  instrument  was  no  longer  a 
piano,  it  was  an  orchestra  they  heard — the  Genius  of  music 
rose  before  them. 

"That  is  Mozart,"  he  cried.  "Hear  how  that  German 
handles  his  chords ;  see  through  what  intricate  modulations 
he  raises  the  image  of  terror  to  come  to  the  dominant  of  C. 
I  can  hear  all  hell  there  ! 

"The  curtain  rises. 

"What  do  I  see?  The  only  spectacle  to  which  we  can 
give  the  epithet  infern.il  ;  an  orgy  of  Knights  in  Sicily.  The 
chorus  in  F  contains  every  human  passion  let.  loose  in  that 
bacchanalian  allegro.  Every  thread  by  which  the  devil  holds 
us  is  pulled.  That  is  the  kind  of  joy  that  comes  over  men 


GAMBARA.  421 

when  they  dance  on  the  verge  of  a  precipice  ;  they  whirl  them- 
selves into  vertigo.  What  '  go  '  in  that  chorus  ! 

"  From  that  chorus,  the  reality  of  life,  an  artless  bourgeois 
of  every-day  existence  stands  out — G-minor — in  the  song  by 
Raimbaut,  full  is  it  is  of  simplicity.  That  worthy  man,  who 
is  the  representative  of  the  fresh  verdure  of  plenteous  Nor- 
mandy, refreshes  my  soul  as  he  recalls  it  to  Robert's  mind  in 
the  midst  of  his  drunkenness.  The  sweetness  of  that  beloved 
land  shines  like  a  thread  of  gold  in  the  dark  texture  of  the 
scene. 

"'Now  comes  the  marvelous  ballad  in  C-major,  accompanied 
by  the  chorus  in  C-minor,  so  expressive  of  the  theme.  Then 
the  outburst  l Je  suis  Robert' — I  am  Robert.  The  rage  of 
the  prince  offended  by  his  vassal  is  no  longer  a  natural  fury  ; 
but  presently  it  calms  down,  for  memories  of  childhood  arise, 
with  those  of  Alice,  in  that  gracefully  pretty  allegro — A-major. 

"  Do  you  not  hear  the  cries  of  the  persecuted  innocent  as  it 
enters  this  infernal  drama?  'No,  no  !  '  "  sang  Gambara,  and 
making  the  piano  echo  him.  "  His  native  land  and  its  sweet 
memories  bloom  anew  in  Robert's  heart ;  his  mother's  shade 
now  arises,  bringing  in  its  train  soothing  religious  thoughts. 
Religion  it  is  that  inspires  that  beautiful  song  in  E-major,  with 
its  miraculous  progressions  in  harmony  and  melody,  in  the 
words : 

'  Car  dans  les  cieux,  comme  sur  la  terre 
Sa  m6re  va  prier  pour  lui.'* 

The  struggle  begins  between  the  mysterious  powers  and  the 
only  human  being  who  has  the  fire  of  hell  in  his  veins  to  re- 
sist them.  To  make  this  quite  clear,  as  Bertram  comes  on, 
the  great  musician  gives  the  orchestra  a  ritorntllo  reminiscent 
of  Raimbaut's  ballad.  What  art  !  What  cohesion  of  every 
part !  What  strength  of  construction  !  . 

*  For  in  the  skies  as  on  the  earth 
For  him  his  mother  prayeth. 


422  GAMBARA. 

"The  devil  is  beneath  all;  he  hides,  he  squirms.  With 
the  terror  of  Alice,  who  recognizes  the  devil  of  the  image  of 
St.  Michael  in  her  own  Norman  village,  the  conflict  of  the 
powers  antagonistic  begins.  The  musical  theme  develops — in 
what  varied  phrases  !  The  antithesis  so  necessary  in  every 
opera  is  emphatically  shown  in  a  grand  recitative,  such  as 
Gluck  might  have  composed,  between  Bertram  and  Robert : 

'  Tu  ne  sauras  jamais  a  quel  exces  je  t'aime.'* 

In  that  diabolical  C-minor,  Bertram,  in  his  terrible  bass, 
which  countermines  and  destroys  every  effort  of  the  vehement, 
passionate  man,  is,  to  me,  terribly  appalling. 

"Must  the  crime  become  possessed  of  the  criminal?  Will 
the  executioner  clutch  his  prey?  Must  misfortune  swallow  up 
the  genius  of  the  artist  ?  Will  the  disease  kill  the  patient  ? 
Can  the  guardian  angel  save  the  Christian  ? 

"  Now  the  finale,  the  gambling  scene,  in  which  he  torments 
his  son  by  rousing  him  to  terrible  emotions.  Robert,  de- 
spoiled, angry,  destroying  everything  around  him,  eager  for 
killing,  breathing  blood,  fire,  and  sword,  is  his  own  son  ;  the 
father  sees  the  likeness.  What  horrid  glee  we  note  in  Ber- 
tram's words,  'Je  ris  de  tes  coup  .' '  or,  '  I  laugh  at  thy  blows  !  ' 
How  the  Venetian  barcarole  tinges  this  finale !  Through 
what  bold  transitions  that  infamous  parent  is  brought  on  the 
stage  again  to  drag  Robert  to  once  more  throw  the  dice  ! 

"This  first  act  is  overpowering  to  those  who  follow  out 
such  themes  in  the  profundity  of  their  thought  and  gives  them 
the  breadth  of  meaning  the  composer  intends  to  convey. 

"  Love  alone  could  be  in  contrast  with  that  grand  symphony 
of  song,  in  which  you  cannot  detect  any  monotony  nor  twice 
the  employment  of  the  same  means.  It  is  one,  it  is  many  ;  it 
is  characteristic/^  all  that  is  grand  and  natural.  I  breathe 
freer  ;  I  reach  the  higher  sphere  of  a  chivalrous  court  ;  I  hear 

*  Never  wilt  thou  understand  to  what  excess  I  love  thce. 


GAMBARA.  423 

Isabella  in  charming  phrase,  fresh,  but  always  melancholy; 
and  the  female  chorus  in  two  divisions,  echoing  each  other, 
with  a  suggestion,  it  seems,  of  the  Moorish  influence  on  Spain. 

"Here  the  terrifying  music  is  softened  to  a  gentler  tone, 
like  a  storm  dying  away,  till  it  comes  to  this  dainty  flowery 
duet,  so  sweetly  modulated  and  entirely  unlike  the  preceding 
music.  After  the  turmoil  of  a  camp  of  martial  heroes  and 
free-lances  comes  a  fair  picture  of  love.  Poet !  I  thank  thee  ! 
My  heart  could  not  have  borne  more. 

"If  I  could  not  here  and  there  have  plucked  the  daisies  of 
a  French  light  opera,  if  I  had  listened  to  the  sweet  gayety  of  a 
woman  able  alike  to  love  and  charm,  I  could  not  have  endured 
that  terrible,  deep  note  with  which  Bertram  reappears,  as  he  says 
to  his  son  :  '  Si  je  le  permets  .' '  (If  I  permit  it)  ;  when  Robert 
has  promised,  in  his  hearing,  the  princess  he  adores,  that  he 
will  conquer  with  the  arms  she  gives  him. 

"To  the  hope  of  the  gambler  reforming  through  love,  the 
love  of  the  exquisite  Sicilian — do  you  not  note  that  falcon 
eye? — to  the  hope  of  the  man  hell  answers  in  that  awful 
cry  :  (A  tot,  Robert  de  Normandie  !  ' 

"  Does  not  the  sombre  horror  of  those  long-held,  splendid 
notes  excite  your  admiration  in  that :  '  Dans  la  foret  pro- 
chaine?'  All  the  fascinations  of  'Jerusalem  Delivered  '  is  to 
be  found  here,  just  as  Chivalry  appears  in  that  chorus  with  the 
Spanish  movement ;  and  in  the  tempo  di  marcia.  What  origi- 
nality in  that  allegro ;  in  the  modulation  of  the  four  cymbals 
in  C-D,  C-G !  What  grace  in  the  call  to  the  lists  !  The 
movement  of  the  whole  heroic  life  of  the  period  is  there ;  the 
soul  unites  with  it ;  I  read  in  it  a  romance,  a  poem  of  chivalry. 

"The  exposition  now  ends;  the  resources  of  the  art  of 
music  appear  to  have  been  exhausted ;  and  yet  it  was  a  homo- 
geneous whole.  You  have  had  human  life  set  before  you  in 
its  one,  its  only  real  aspect.  '  Shall  I  be  happy  or  unhappy  ?  '  is 
the  query  of  the  philosopher.  '  Shall  I  be  saved  «r  damned?1 
is  that  of  the  Christian." 


424  GAMBARA. 

Here  Gambara  struck  the  last  chords  of  the  chorus,  which 
he  brought  forth  in  a  lingering,  melancholy  way ;  he  then 
rose  and  poured  out  and  drank  another  large  glass  of  Giro. 
This  semi-African  vintage  again  lit  up  the  fires  of  his  counte- 
nance, which  had  been  somewhat  paled  by  the  passionate  and 
wonderful  sketch  of  Meyerbeer's  opera  that  he  had  made. 

"That  nothing  maybe  lacking  to  this  composition,"  he 
resumed,  "  the  great  artist  has  given  us  the  only  buffo  duet 
permissible  for  a  devil  to  sing ;  that  in  which  the  unhappy 
troubadour  is  tempted.  He  puts  a  horror  and  a  jest  side  by 
side,  a  jest  that  literally  swallows  up  the  only  realism  he  had 
allowed  himself  in  the  weird  opera — the  pure,  calm  love  of 
Alice  and  Raimbaut ;  their  life  is  to  be  troubled  by  anticipa- 
tory evils.  Only  great  souls  can  feel  the  nobility  that  animates 
these  buffo  airs. 

"They  have  neither  the  gaudiness  of  our  Italian  music  nor 
the  vulgarity  of  our  Parisian  street  favorites ;  they  possess 
rather  the  divinity  of  Olympus.  The  bitter  laugh  of  a  divine 
being  mocks  the  surprise  of  the  Don-Juanized  troubadour. 
Only  for  this  dignity  the  return  to  the  general  tone  of  the 
opera  would  be  too  suddenly  achieved,  full  as  it  is  of  terrible 
fury  of  diminished  sevenths,  and  resolving  into  that  infernal 
waltz,  which  at  last  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  howling 
demons. 

"  How  vigorously  Bertram's  couplet  detaches  itself — B- 
minor — from  the  devil's  chorus,  in  which  is  depicted  the 
knowledge  of  paternity  mingled  in  awful  despair  with  de- 
moniac voices  !  What  an  exquisite  transition  is  the  arrival  of 
Alice,  ritornello  in  B-flat.  I  still  hear  those  voices  of  the 
angels  in  their  heavenly  freshness ;  it  is  the  warble  of  the 
nightingale  after  the  tempest. 

"Thus  is  the  leading  idea  of  the  whole  worked  out  in 
detail ;  for  what  could  better  be  done  than  the  contrast  with 
the  tumult  of  demons  in  their  den  and  the  wonderful  aria  by 
Alice  ? 


GAMBARA.  425 

"The  golden  thread  of  the  melody  glides  through  the  entire 
length  of  the  grand  harmony  like  a  hope  of  heaven  ;  it  is  em- 
broidered on  it  with  marvelous  skill.  She  sings : 

•Quand  j  ai  quitt«i  la  Normandie.'* 

"  Genius  can  never  lose  hold  on  the  science  that  guides  it. 
Here  Alice's  song  in  B-flat  is  taken  up  to  F-sharp,  the  domi- 
nant of  the  chorus  of  devils.  Do  you  hear  the  tremolo  of  the 
orchestra  ?  Robert  is  being  bidden  to  the  rout  of  devils. 

"  Here  Bertram  reenters,  and  this  is  the  culminating  point 
of  musical  interest,  a  recitative,  only  comparable  to  the  finest 
compositions  of  the  greatest  masters ;  comes  the  struggle  in 
E-flat  between  the  two  combatants,  Heaven  and  Hell — one 
in  '  Out,  tu  me  connais  /'  (Yes,  thou  knowest  me  !) — on  a 
diminished  seventh  ;  the  other  in  that  sublime  F,  '  Le  del 
cstavccmoi!' — Heaven  is  with  me!  Hell  and  the  crucifix 
are  face  to  face. 

"  Then  we  have  Bertram's  threats  to  Alice,  the  most  awful 
pathos  ever  written  ;  the  Genius  of  Evil  complacently  making 
himself  known,  and,  as  usual,  tempting  through  self-interest. 
The  arrival  of  Robert  gives  us  the  magnificent  trio,  unaccom- 
pained,  in  A-flat ;  this  opens  the  struggle  between  the  two 
rival  forces  for  the  possession  of  the  man.  Note  how  clearly 
this  is  effected,"  exclaimed  Gambara,  who  epitomized  the  scene 
with  such  passion  of  execution  as  startled  Andrea. 

"  All  this  avalanche  of  music,  from  the  crash  of  the  cymbals 
in  common  time,  has  rolled  onward  to  this  contest  of  the  three 
voices.  The  spell  of  Evil  triumphs  !  Alice  flees.  You  hear 
the  duet  between  Bertram  and  Robert — in  D.  The  devil 
fixes  his  talons  in  Robert's  heart ;  he  rends  it  for  his  own  ;  he 
decants  on  every  feeling — honor,  hope,  eternal  pleasure,  all 
are  in  turn  displayed  before  him ;  he  carries  him,  as  he  did 
Jesus,  to  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  he  shows  him  all  the 
treasures  of  the  earth,  that  jewel-case  of  Sin.  Finally  he 
*  When  I  forsook  my  Normandy. 


42C  GAMBARA, 

piques  his  courage,  he  stings  him,  and  the  noble  instincts  of 
the  man  is  expressed  in  that  cry : 

'  Des  chevaliers  de  ma  patrie 
L'honneur  toujours  fut  le  soutien.' 

(To  the  knights  of  my  native  land, 
Their  mainstay  was  honor  ever.) 

To  crown  the  whole  opera  comes  in  the  same  theme  which  so 
fatally  prognosticated  the  work  at  its  opening,  that  grand  in- 
vocation to  the  dead  : 

'  Nonnes  qui  reposez  sous  cette  froide  pierre, 
M'entendez-vous  ?  ' 

(Nuns  who  sleep  beneath  that  cold,  cold  stone, 
Hear  ye  me?) 

Carried  most  gloriously  through  the  career  of  the  music,  it 
ends  equally  gloriously  in  the  allegro  vivace  of  the  bacchanal 
— D-minor.  Here  is  the  triumph  of  Hell  !  Roll  on  har- 
mony !  Swathe  us  in  thy  manifold  cloak !  Roll  on,  be- 
witching ! 

"The  powers  of  the  infernal  have  seized  their  prey.  They 
hold  him  while  they  dance  around  him.  The  noble  genius 
born  to  vanquish,  born  to  reign,  is  lost !  Devils  rejoice, 
genius  is  stifled  by  povetry,  passion  wrecks  the  knight." 

Here  Gambara  improvised  ^fanlasia  himself,  cleverly  vary- 
ing the  bacchanale,  and  accompanying  the  piano  in  a  soft  tone 
of  voice,  as  if  to  give  utterance  to  the  sufferings  he  had 
known. 

"Do  you  hear  the  celestial  plaints  of  neglected  love?" 
said  he.  "  Isabella  calls  Robert  from  the  midst  of  that  grand 
chorus  of  knights  wending  their  way  to  the  tournament,  where 
the  motifs  of  the  second  act  reappear  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
the  events  of  the  third  act  happen  in  supernatural  spheres. 
Here  is  real  life  again.  The  chorus  fades  away  as  the  enchant- 


GAMBARA.  427 

ments  of  hell  approach,  which  are  brought  by  Robert  with 
his  talisman.  Now  develops  the  deviltries  of  the  third  act. 
First  the  viola  duet,  where  the  rhythm  plainly  depicts  the 
brutal  desires  of  a  man  who  is  omnipotent,  while  the  princess, 
in  plaintive  moans,  endeavors  to  recall  her  lover  to  reason. 

"  Here  the  musician  has  placed  himself  in  a  position  that 
is  very  difficult  to  be  brought  out ;  but  he  surmounts  it  by  the 
sweetest  gem  in  the  whole  work.  What  exquisite  melody  in 
the  cavatina  '  Grace  pour  tot  !  '  (Mercy  for  thee  \)  That  one 
number  would  suffice  to  make  any  opera  famous ;  for  every 
woman  feels  that  she  is  contending  against  a  knight.  Never 
yet  was  music  so  passionate,  so  dramatic. 

"  The  whole  world  now  rises  against  the  reprobate.  Some 
may  object  that  the  finale  resembles  too  much  that  of  '  Don 
Giovanni ;  '  but  there  is  this  immense  difference  :  a  noble 
faith  inspires  Isabella,  a  perfect  love  that  will  rescue  Robert, 
who  scornfully  rejects  the  talisman  of  hell  confided  to  him, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  Don  Giovanni  persists  in  his  unbelief. 
Beside  all,  this  accusation  has  been  made  against  every  com- 
poser who  has  written  a  finale  since  the  time  of  Mozart.  The 
finale  to  •'  Don  Giovanni '  is  one  of  those  classic  forms  that  has 
been  invented  once  for  all  time. 

"  At  last  we  hear  Religion,  which  arises  omnipotent,  in  a 
voice  that  rules  the  universe,  that  calls  all  sorrow  to  come  and 
be  consoled,  all  repentances,  that  they  may  have  peace. 

"  The  whole  house  is  stirred  by  the  chorus : 

'  Malheureux  ou  coupables, 
Hatez-vous  d'accourir  ! ' 

(Now  wretched,  guilty  men, 
Haste  to  approach  !) 

Hitherto,  in  the  fearful  tumult  of  unchained  passions,  the 
Holy  Voice  had  not  been  heard  ;  but  at  this  critical  moment 
it  booms  out  like  thunder  ;  the  Catholic  church  divine  rises 


428  GAMBARA. 

glorious  in  light.  And  I  am  astonished  to  here  find  at  the 
close  of  such  a  lavish  use  of  harmonic  treasures  a  new  vein  of 
gold  in  that  grand  masterpiece  of  chorus :  '  Gloire  a  la  Provi- 
dence .' '  written  in  Handel's  style. 

"  Robert,  distracted,  rushes  on  the  stage  with  his  heart-rend- 
ing cry:  'Si  je  pouvais  prier ! '  (Could  I  but  pray!)  But, 
constrained  by  the  edict  of  hell,  Bertram  pursues  his  son  and 
makes  a  final  effort.  Alice  calls  up  the  vision  of  the  Mother. 
Now  you  hear  the  glorious  trio  to  which  the  whole  opera  has 
gradually  advanced,  the  triumph  of  soul  over  matter,  the  vic- 
tory of  the  spirit  of  Good  over  the  spirit  of  Evil.  The  strains 
of  faith  prevail  over  the  chorus  of  hell ;  joy  reappears  in 
majesty.  Here  the  music  weakens.  I  but  see  a  cathedral 
instead  of  hearing  a  concert  of  angels  in  bliss  ;  a  divine  prayer 
of  souls  delivered,  consecrating  the  union  of  Robert  and  Alice. 
We  ought  not  to  be  left  under  the  spells  of  hell,  we  should  be 
able  to  leave  the  scene  with  a  heart  of  hope. 

"  Myself  a  Catholic  and  a  musician,  I  needed  for  my  soul 
another  prayer  like  the  one  from  '  Moses  in  Egypt.'  Also 
would  I  fain  have  seen  Germany  contending  with  Italy — what 
Meyerbeer  could  do  to  rival  Rossini. 

"  However,  the  writer  may  say,  in  justification  of  this  de- 
fect, that,  after  five  hours  of  such  solid,  substantial  music,  a 
Parisian  prefers  a  bon-bon  to  a  musical  masterpiece.  You 
heard  the  applause  that  followed  the  performance  ;  it  will  run 
five  hundred  nights.  If  the  French  really  understand  that 
music " 

"It  is  because  they  have  ideas,"  said  the  count. 

"  No,  it  is  because  it  powerfully  sets  forth  in  definite  shape 
an  image  of  that  struggle  in  which  so  many  souls  are  worsted  ; 
and  because  all  individual  existences  are  connected  with  it  by 
memory,  as  it  were.  Therefore  is  it  that  I,  unhappy  one, 
grieve  that  at  the  end  I  do  not  hear  the  sound  of  those  celestial 
voices  I  have  so  often  heard  in  dreams." 

Here  Gambara  fell  into  a  musical  ecstasy  ;  he  improvised  the 


GAMBARA.  429 

most  lovely,  melodious,  and  harmonious  cavatina  that  Andrea 
should  ever  hear ;  a  song  divinely  sung,  on  a  theme  as  graceful 
and  full  of  charm  as  that  of  O  fi Hi  ct  filia: ;  but  with  such 
added  beauties  such  as  none  but  musical  genius  of  the  highest 
order  could  have  rendered. 

The  count  was  lost  in  rapt  admiration  ;  the  clouds  were 
breaking ;  the  celestial  blue  shone  out ;  now  angelic  forms 
appeared  and  raised  the  veil  that  hid  the  sanctuary ;  the  light 
of  heaven  descended. 

Silence  reigned  again. 

The  count,  surprised  at  the  music  suddenly  ceasing,  looked 
up  at  Gambara,  who,  with  fixed,  staring  eyes  and  rigid  form, 
stammered  the  word  :  "  GOD  !  " 

The  count  quietly  awaited  the  moment  when  the  composer 
returned  from  celestial  glory,  whither  the  prismatic  wings  of 
inspiration  had  borne  him,  resolving  to  illuminate  his  mind 
with  the  very  truths  that  he  himself  should  bring  down. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  pouring  out  another  bumper  of  wine  and 
clinking  glasses  with  him,  "  this  German  has  written,  as  you 
say,  a  sublime  opera  without  troubling  himself  about  theory ; 
whereas  musicians  who  write  grammars  of  music  are,  more 
than  often,  like  literary  critics — atrocious  composers." 

"Then  you  do  not  like  my  music?" 

"  I  don't  say  that.  But,  if  instead  of  perpetually  dissecting 
the  method  of  idea  expression — which  carries  you  beyond  the 
mark — you  would  simply  awaken  our  sensations,  I  feel  sure 
that  you  would  be  better  comprehended,  unless,  that  is,  you 
have  not  entirely  mistaken  your  vocation.  You  are  a  great 
poet." 

"What!"  cried  Gambara.  "What,  are  five-and-twenty 
years  of  study  simply  wasted  ?  Am  I  then  to  learn  the  im- 
perfect utterance  of  man — I  who  hold  the  key  to  the  language 
of  heaven  ?  Ah  !  should  you  be  right — then  I  crave  to  die  !  " 

"  No,  no,  not  you.  You  are  great,  you  are  strong.  You 
shall  begin  a  new  life,  and  I,  your  friend,  will  sustain  you. 


430  GAMBARA. 

We  will  show  to  the  world  the  rare  and  noble  alliance  of  a 
rich  man  and  an  artist  who  comprehend  each  other." 

"  Do  you  speak  truth?"  asked  Gambara,  rigid  in  a  sudden 
torpor. 

"  As  I  have  already  said,  you  are  more  poet  than  musician." 

"A  poet,  poet!  That  is  better  than  nothing.  But  truly 
tell  me,  whom  do  you  most  esteem,  Mozart  or  Homer?" 

"  I  admire  them  equally." 

"  On  your  honor?  " 

"On  my  honor." 

"  H'm  !  One  word  more.  What  think  you  of  Meyerbeer 
and  Byron?" 

"You  have  judged  them  by  naming  them  together." 

The  count's  carriage  was  at  the  door.  The  composer  arrd 
his  titled  physician  were  driven  to  Gambara's  residence. 
They  ran  upstairs  and  were  soon  in  Marianna's  presence. 

As  they  entered  Gambara  threw  himself  into  his  wife's  arms, 
who  withdrew  a  step  and  averted  her  head.  The  husband  also 
drew  back,  and,  beaming  on  the  count,  said,  in  a  husky  voice  : 

"You  might  at  least  have  left  me  my  madness,  monsieur." 

Then  his  head  drooped  and  he  fell. 

"  What  have  you  done  ?  "  cried  Marianna,  casting  a  look  at 
her  husband,  in  which  disgust  and  pity  were  equally  blended. 
"  He  is  dead  drunk  !  " 

The  count  with  the  help  of  his  valet  raised  Gambara  and 
laid  him  upon  the  bed  ;  then  Andrea  left  the  house,  his  heart 
glad  in  horrid  rapture. 

The  next  day  he  purposely  let  the  hour  of  his  daily  visit 
pass  by  ;  he  was  beginning  to  fear  that  he  had  been  duped  by 
himself,  and  had  paid  too  dearly  for  the  comfort  and  virtue 
of  that  humble  couple  whose  peace  he  had  for  ever  destroyed. 

At  length  Giardini  came  bringing  a  note  from  Marianna. 

"Come,"  she  wrote,  "the  harm  done  is  not  so  great  as 
you  desired,  cruel  man." 

"  Exccllcnza,"  said  the  cook,  while  Andrea  was  dressing, 


GAMBARA.  431 

"  you  entertained  right  royally  last  night.  But  you  must 
allow  that,  apart  from  the  wines,  which  were  excellent,  your 
mattrc  d' hdtel  did  not  produce  a  single  dish  worthy  an  epicure's 
table.  You  won't  deny,  I  suppose,  that  the  dish  placed  before 
you,  on  the  day  you  honored  my  table  with  your  presence, 
was  superlatively  better  than  those  that  sullied  your 
service  of  plate  last  evening?  Consequently,  when  I  awoke 
this  morning,  I  remembered  the  promise  you  had  made  me  to 
become  your  chef.  I  henceforth  consider  myself  as  one  of 
your  household." 

"  I  have  had  the  same  thought  in  my  mind  for  the  past  few 
days,"  replied  Andrea.  "I  have  mentioned  your  name  to 
the  Austrian  ambassador,  and  you  will  be  allowed  to  recross 
the  Alps  as  soon  as  you  please.  In  Croatia  I  have  a  castle 
which  I  seldom  visit.  There  you  may  combine  the  offices  of 
porter,  butler,  cook,  and  steward,  with  two  hundred  crowns  a 
year.  This  emolument  will  also  be  that  of  your  wife,  who 
can  do  the  rest  of  the  work.  You  can  there  try  all  your  ex- 
periments in  anima  vili — that  is  to  say,  on  the  stomachs  of  my 
vassals.  Here  is  a  cheque  for  the  costs  of  your  journey." 

Giardini  kissed  the  count's  hand,  in  the  Neapolitan  fashion. 

"  Excellenza,"  said  he,  "I  accept  the  cheque,  but  not  the 
position.  It  would  be  dishonoring  in  me  to  give  up  my  art 
and  lose  the  good  opinion  of  the  most  perfect  epicures,  who 
are  undoubtedly  those  of  Paris." 

When  Andrea  arrived  at  Gambara's  apartments  the  com- 
poser arose  and  came  forward  to  meet  him. 

"  My  generous  friend,"  said  he  frankly,  "either  it  is  that 
you  took  advantage  of  the  weakness  of  my  head  to  play  a 
joke  on  me  last  night,  or  else  your  brain  is  no  whit  stronger, 
when  testing  the  heady  fumes  of  our  native  Latium,  than 
mine  is.  I  choose  the  latter  hypothesis  :  I  prefer  to  doubt 
your  stomach  than  your  heart.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  from  this 
renounce  the  use  of  wine — for  ever.  Last  evening  the  abuse 
of  good  liqueur  led  me  into  culpable  folly.  When  I  call  to 


432  GAMBARA. 

mind  that  I  nearly  degraded "  He  glanced  in  terror  at 

Marianna. 

"As  to  that  wretched  opera  you  took  me  to  hear,  I  have 
thought  it  over ;  it  is  naught  but  music  made  by  very  ordi- 
nary methods  ;  a  heap  of  piled -up  notes — verba  et  voces.  It 
is  but  the  dregs  of  the  nectar  which  I  quaff  in  deep  draughts 
as  I  reproduce  the  heavenly  music  that  I  hear.  I  know  the 
origin  of  those  patched-up  phrases.  That  Gloire  a  la  Provi- 
dence is  too  like  Handel ;  the  chorus  of  knights  on  their  way 
to  the  lists  is  closely  related  to  the  Scotch  air  in  '  La  Dame 
Blanche.'  In  short,  if  the  opera  is  pleasing,  it  is  simply  be- 
cause the  music  is  borrowed  from  everybody  and  is  therefore 
generally  known. 

"  I  must  now  leave  you,  my  dear  friend.  Since  morning  I 
have  had  an  idea  seething  in  my  brain  which  bids  me  rise  to 
God  on  the  wings  of  song ;  but  I  wished  to  see  you  and  say 
this  much  to  you.  Adieu  !  I  go  to  ask  forgiveness  of  my 
Muse.  We  shall  meet  this  evening  at  dinner;  but  no  more 
wine — at  least  not  for  me.  Oh  !  I  am  firmly  resolved " 

"  I  give  him  up,"  said  Andrea,  blushing  violently. 

"You  enlighten  my  conscience,"  said  Marianna,  "I  dared 
not  question  it.  My  friend,  my  friend,  the  fault  is  not  ours  ; 
he  won't  let  us  cure  him." 

Six  years  later,  in  January,  1837,  such  musical  artists  as 
were  unlucky  enough  to  injure  their  wind  or  string  instru- 
ments were  in  the  habit  of  taking  them  to  the  Rue  Froidman- 
teau,  to  a  squalid,  disreputable  house  where  the  said  instruments 
were  repaired  by  an  old  Italian  named  Gambara,  who  resided 
on  the  sixth  floor. 

For  the  past  five  years  this  man  had  lived  alone,  his  wife 
having  deserted  him.  An  instrument,  called  by  him  a  pan- 
harmonicon,  from  which  he  expected  fame,  had  been  sold  at 
auction  by  the  sheriff,  on  the  Place  du  Chfttelet,  in  addition 
to  a  great  pile  of  musical  manuscript  thickly  scrawled.  The 


GAMBARA.  433' 

day  after  the  sale,   this  said  paper  appeared  in  the  markets 
wrapped  around  pats  of  butter,  fish,  and  fruits. 

In  this  manner  the  three  grand  operas — of  which  the  poor 
man  would  often  boast,  though  a  once-celebrated  Neapolitan 
cook,  now  a  vendor  of  broken  victuals,  declared  they  were 
but  a  mass  of  rubbish — were  scattered  throughout  Paris  in  the 
baskets  of  hucksters.  But  what  matter  ? — the  landlord  had 
gotten  his  rent,  the  sheriff's  men  their  fees. 

The  Neapolitan  victual-monger,  who  had  as  regular  cus- 
tomers the  prostitutes  of  the  Rue  Froidmanteau  for  his 
warmed-up  scraps,  which  were  the  crumbs  from  the  fine  ban- 
quets given  by  society  on  the  previous  night,  was  always  ready 
to  tell  that  Signora  Gambara  had  gone  off  to  Italy  with  a 
nobleman  of  Milan,  and  no  one  knew  what  had  become  of 
her.  Weary  of  poverty  and  wretchedness,  she  was  more  than 
likely  ruining  the  count  by  a  career  of  extravagant  luxury,  for 
they  adored  each  other  with  so  fierce  a  passion  that  he  had 
never  in  all  his  Neapolitan  experience  beheld  the  like. 

Toward  the  end  of  this  same  month,  January,  one  evening  as 
Giardini  was  chatting  with  a  girl,  who  had  chanced  in  to  buy  her 
supper,  about  the  beautiful  Marianna,  so  pure,  so  glorious,  so 
nobly  self-devoted,  and  who  had,  notwithstanding,  gone  the 
way  of  alt  the  rest,  the  street-girl  and  the  wife  of  Giardini 
noticed  in  the  street  a  tall,  thin  woman,  with  a  sunburnt, 
dusty  face  ;  a  nervous  walking  skeleton,  who  was  peering  at 
all  the  numbers  and  trying  to  recognize  a  house. 

"Ecco  la  Marianna.'"  cried  Giardini. 

Marianna  recognized  the  one-time  cook  in  the  poor  object, 
but  gave  no  heed  to  the  misfortunes  which  had  reduced  him 
to  his  present  wretched  trade  as  a  dealer  in  second-hand  food. 
She  went  in  and  sat  down  ;  she  had  walked  from  Fontaine- 
bleau  ;  she  had  walked  fourteen  leagues  that  day,  after  begging 
her  bread  from  Turin  to  Paris. 

The  sight  of  her  horrified  that  miserable  trio.     Of  all  her 
marvelous  loveliness  naught  now  remained  but  a  pair  of  fading, 
28 


434  GAMBARA. 

anguished  eyes.  The  one  thing  faithful  to  her  was  misfor- 
tune. 

The  old  mender  of  instruments  heartily  welcomed  her ;  he 
greeted  her  with  inexpressible  joy. 

"Here  you  are,  my  poor  Marianna !  "  he  said  affection- 
ately. "  During  your  absence  they  sold  my  instrument  and 
my  operas." 

It  would  have  been  a  difficult  job  to  kill  the  fatted  calf  for 
the  prodigal  returned ;  but  Giardini  produced  the  fag-end  of 
a  salmon,  the  street-walker  paid  for  the  wine,  Gambara  found 
the  bread,  Signora  Giardini  lent  a  table-cloth,  and  these 
diverse  unfortunates  supped  together  in  the  musician's  garret. 

When  questioned  about  her  adventures,  Marianna  refused 
to  reply,  but  she  raised  her  fine  eyes  to  heaven  and  whispered 
to  Giardini : 

"He  married  a  ballet-girl." 

"And  how  do  you  mean  to  live?"  asked  the  girl.  "The 
journey  from  Milan  has  killed  you  and — 

"Made  me  an  old  woman,"  said  Marianna.  "No,  it  is 
not  fatigue,  not  poverty,  it  is  grief  that  has  done  this." 

"Bah!  why  then  did  you  never  send  your  man  here  any 
money?" 

Marianna  only  answered  by  a  look,  but  it  stabbed  the 
woman  to  the  heart. 

"She  ain't  proud  at  all !  oh,  no  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "But 
much  good  it  has  done  her,"  she  whispered  in  Giardini's  ear. 

That  year  it  seemed  that  every  musician  took  extraordinary 
care  of  his  instrument,  and  the  business  of  repairing  them 
dropped  to  nil,  or  to  less  than  sufficient  to  provide  for  the 
daily  bread  of  that  poor  household.  The  wife  earned  little 
by  her  needle,  and  they  were  compelled  to  turn  their  talents  to 
account  in  the  meanest  occupation. 

In  the  dusk  they  would  go  together  to  the  Champs-Elysees 
and  sing  duets,  and  Gambara,  poor  soul,  accompanied  on  a 
wretched  guitar.  On  the  way  thither  Marianna,  who  always 


GAMBARA.  435 

concealed  her  head  under  a  sort  of  veil  of  lawn,  would  take  her 
husband  to  a  grocery  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore  and  give 
him  two  or  three  nips  of  brandy  to  make  him  tipsy ;  otherwise 
he  could  not  play  but  intolerably.  Then  they  would  stand 
up  together  before  the  gay  world  seated  on  chairs  along  the 
esplanade,  and  the  greatest  genius  of  the  day,  the  unrecognized 
Orpheus  of  modern  music,  played  fragments  of  his  operas  to 
the  crowd.  These  were  so  remarkable  that  they  were  able  to 
extract  a  few  sous  from  Parisian  supineness. 

One  day  a  dilettante  of  the  Bouffons  happened  to  be  sitting 
there,  and,  not  recognizing  from  what  opera  they  were  taken, 
questioned  the  woman  in  the  Grecian  head-dress,  when  she 
held  out  the  stamped,  round  metallic  plate  on  which  she  col- 
lected her  charity. 

"  I  say,  my  dear,  from  what  music  is  that  ?  " 

"  From  the  opera  of  '  Mahomet,'  "  Marianna  replied. 

As  Rossini  had  composed  an  opera,  "Mahomet  II.,"  the 
gentleman  remarked  to  the  lady  : 

"  What  a  pity  that  they  will  not  give  us  at  the  Italiens  those 
works  of  Rossini  that  are  known  the  least.  Certain  it  is  that 
this  is  glorious  music." 

Gambara  smiled. 

A  few  days  ago  it  was  necessary  for  this  poor  couple  to  pay 
the  paltry  sum  of  thirty-six  francs  as  arrears  of  rent  due  on 
their  miserable  garret.  The  grocer  refused  to  give  credit  for 
the  brandy  with  which  Marianna  plied  her  husband  to  enable 
him  to  play.  Gambara  was  thus  so  atrociously  bad  that  it 
became  insufferable ;  the  ears  of  the  rich  were  irresponsive — 
the  tin  bottle-stand  remained  empty. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  a  beautiful  Italian, 
the  Principessa  Massimilla  di  Varese,*  took  pity  on  the  poor 
creatures.  She  gave  Marianna  forty  francs  and  questioned 
both,  after  discovering  from  the  wife's  thanks  that  she  was  a 

*  See  "  Massimilla  Doni." 


436  GAMBARA. 

Venetian.  Prince  Emilio,  who  accompanied  his  wife,  would 
learn  the  history  of  their  distress,  and  Marianna  detailed  all, 
making  no  complaints  against  God  or  man. 

"Madame,"  said  Gambara,  who  was  not  drunk,  "we  are 
the  victims  of  our  own  superiority.  My  music  is  good  ;  but 
so  soon  as  music  rises  from  sensation  to  idea,  only  persons  of 
genius  should  be  the  hearers,  for  only  they  are  capable  of 
responding  to  it !  It  has  been  my  misfortune  to  hear  the 
chorus  of  angels ;  I  believed  that  men  could  understand  those 
strains.  It  is  thus  with  women  when  their  love  assumes  a 
divine  aspect :  men  can  no  longer  comprehend  them." 

These  words  were  well  worth  the  forty  francs  bestowed  by 
Massimilla ;  she  drew  out  another  gold-piece  from  her  purse, 
saying,  as  she  gave  it  to  Marianna,  that  she  would  write  An- 
drea Marcosini. 

"Do  not  write  him,  madame ! "  exclaimed  Marianna. 
"And  God  grant  you  may  be  beautiful  for  ever  !  " 

"  Let  us  provide  for  them,"  said  the  princess  to  her  hus- 
band ;  "  this  man  has  remained  faithful  to  the  IDEAL  which 
•we  have  killed." 

When  Gambara  saw  the  gold  he  wept ;  then  there  came  to 
him  a  vague  reminiscence  of  some  old  scientific  experiment, 
and  the  wretched  composer,  as  he  wiped  away  his  tears,  uttered 
these  words,  which  the  attendant  circumstances  make  oiteous : 

*'  Water  is  produced  by  burning." 


LIBRARY 


UC  SOUTH!  RNRlGIONAi  I  ; 


A    001  256562 


